Budget horror and why it works
To scare the audience silly is a hefty challenge on its own but to do so with limited resources is nothing short of a herculean feat.
However, filmmakers have proven that when there is a will, there is a way. Here are some famous horror films that have gone widely well-received despite their shoestring budget.
It is testament that what truly counts in the film industry is an endless imagination and perseverance towards an idea.
The Blair Witch Project
The 1999 film follows the investigations of a trio of students who undertake the dangerous task of exploring a local legend known as the Blair Witch.
Directed by Eduardo Sanchez and Kevin Foxe, the movie is filled with undisguised video footage that shadow film-making students seemingly lost in a cursed woods.
The story goes that the students had vanished during their exploration and their recorded footage eerily resurfaces a year after the incident.
In buffing up the element of realism, the obscure actors had applied their actual names for the project, effectively starring as themselves.
Scenes were filmed in an amateurish manner, with the mock shakiness of camera that attested to the distress exhibited by the characters. Genuine fear amidst a natural environment in the woods with no special effects, made the viewing experience a spine-tingling one.
And the icing on the cake was perhaps the well-packaged publicity stunt that the video was a filed footage that captured the genuine final moments of the ill-fated teenagers.
The movie was successful because it rode on a gimmick: blank spaces and vagueness that encouraged audiences to trail into the dark recesses of their own mind than feed them with poignant images of horror.
With a low budget of USD 60,000, the filmmakers had to rely largely on the natural environment for fear tactics. Thus, the sound of snapping twigs and distant footsteps became the necessary staples in the film.
With an outstanding marketing plan employed for the project, going so far as to distribute posters showing the MIA status of the actors, the horror piece grossed US 250 million worldwide.
For the preparation of the largely improvised role, lead actress Heather Donahue had penned a journal of perspectives for her character, which made its way into the special Blair Witch Project Dossier, an accompanying literature of the film containing credible newspaper cuttings and images taken from the fictional Blair Witch case.
Yet another ingenious promotional strategy by the filmmakers.
The cast experienced an unusual version of fame as news outlets announced that they were dead while they gained popularity for their roles.
Ace marketing is capable of deceiving mass media. Donahue recounted that her family received sympathy cards and her IMDB account had been altered to reflect her passing.
Talk about posthumous success.
One Cut of the Dead
With an impressive 37-minute single take opener, the zombie comedy is a deceptively low-budget piece, featuring a zombie film within a zombie film.
The 2017 indie horror comedy directed by Shin’ichirô Ueda had a cast comprising entirely of students from the Enbu Seminar, a film school in Tokyo.
The movie starts off with an onscreen production of a zombie flick directed by an exasperated filmmaker who was challenged by an ambitious producer to shoot an uninterrupted real-time feature to be broadcast on an upcoming zombie dedicated channel, which had failed numerous times due to incompetent acting by the female lead.
Thing go topsy-turvy when a real zombie shows up on set and scares the actors silly. We discover that the obsessed director was the mastermind behind the ordeal, in short, he summoned the dead.
The desperate filmmaker resumes shooting to capture the genuine despair of his hapless cast and crew while they are slowly infected and turned into zombies themselves.
The fluid transition within the film is a refreshing perspective on the zombie-comedy sub-genre, it is a film that serves as a satirical piece on low-budget productions. The main concept is driven towards making light of the ups and downs (mostly downs) of the low-budget scene.
Director Ueda resets his film just as audiences begin to feel the tedium in his zombie chomp-down.
A faux credit roll disarms audiences as they are transported to an earlier instance when the peevish onscreen director was offered the job.
Comedy ensues as the cast reacts to the outbreak within the dilapidated water treatment plant where the film is supposedly shot. Audiences are treated to a tripartite genre during the film, from comedy, to family-drama and action. Ueda creates the perfect omnibus under the pretext of a B-rate flop.
The film was cleverly put together and produced with a budget of $27,000. The money made however, was reportedly 250 times the amount.
Now, that is no laughing matter.
Paranormal Activity
The 2007 thriller created by Oren Peli has been keeping people awake in their homes since its initial run in theaters.
The movie manipulates the unsuspecting perspective through a home camera and the recorded accounts brilliantly recounted by the two leads.
Found-footage technique (a raw and believable horror gimmick) was applied in the film, capturing the emotions of a couple affronted by unhallowed forces in their home.
What some fans might not know, is the minuscule budget allotted for the film, which was tagged at USD 11,000 and impressively accrued USD 193 Million worldwide. It was a hit because of its fresh perspective. The movie was to be the first in a series of films that rode upon the breakout blockbuster.
The actors were instructed to improvise their lines based on outline cues provided by the director, this was specifically laid out during auditions.
The technique was similarly observed in the Blair Witch Project, where the cast received guide notes cached within camera reel cases that were strategically deposited around the forest (the real location being a day park).
Filming was conducted with the use of a home camera that was kept mounted on a tripod. This set-up eliminated the need of a camera crew and delivered the soul-stirring narrative exactly how the director had intended.
Terror does not need to be a costly enterprise.
The Solution
From the examples above, we can safely concur that films do not necessarily require a hefty budget to receive acclaim.
The trick lies in the delivery and impact of an idea. This fundamental principle should transcend the horror franchise as any title may be effectively marketed with the right methods.
Our team at Premise TV understands the hardships behind film production and the nagging budget constraints it entails.
Thus, we have decided to create an online interactive media platform specially for aspiring filmmakers.
We present to you a creative ecosystem where a sleek crowdfunding system will solve your production woes. Check it out now on www.premise.tv!
Start working on your next hit without worry!
Author: Laurenzo Jude
