“Bubba Ho Tep” was a lot of fun and it cost about $500k. With no budget for special effects (this is a horror type film) it’s pretty much up to the two leads (Bruce Campbell as Elvis and Ossie Davis as Jack Kennedy) to carry the film and I thought they did a good job of it.
I also second votes for Dark Star, El Mariachi and The Blair Witch Project.
And can’t forget Hollywood Shuffle - $100k, Robert Townsend put about $40k on his credit cards to get it done.
Fear Of A Black Hat is fantastic but it cost $1M which makes it “Big Budget” by these standards.
Two films come to mind - “Chan is Missing”, which was filmed for something like $20,000 and Guy Maddin’s “Tales from the Gimli Hospital” which was something like $25,000. Both suffer from their lack of budget, but both are strong statements from writer/directors who tried to make up for a lack of money in the writing (particularly ‘Chan’) or in the art department (particularly ‘Gimli’) Neither are very well known, but both are worth a look.
I heartily agree. It was a personal favourite of mine even before I knew how little they made it for. It certainly wins the award for the most complex movie I’ve ever seen.
Thanks for the great suggestions so far! If I don’t mention your title, it doesn’t mean I don’t love you:
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Evil Dead**: I’ve resisted this movie and it’s sequels for many years because I’m just not a fan of the whole somebody-reads-something-from-an-evil-book-and-terror-and/or-hilarity ensue. Is it really good enough to transcend my lack of interest in the genre? Blair Witch: Saw it, didn’t hate it, but then I had heard about it on NPR and knew what to (and not to) expect. I know a lot of people thought it was a rip-off. I think it was an interesting experimental film that was marketed way beyond it’s appropriate audience. But hey, it worked! Free Enterprise: For some reason when this came out I thought it was a documentary about science-fiction conventions, but I see now I was mistaken. It’s definitely going on my list! Primer: Ultra low-budget time travel? I gotta see that. Eraserhead: Cool! For some reason I thought this was one of those legendary movies that never made it to home video, but I see it’s been on DVD for years. The Last Broadcast: $1,000? Now that’s what I’m talking about. Definitely going on the list. Killer of Sheep: From the title I half-expected this to be a sick joke, but it looks fascinating. And as someone who has been in some really crappy student films, I’d be interested in seeing what a good one looks like! Tarnation: I wasn’t really thinking about documentaries, but that looks interesting. About the sound, that seems to be the biggest problem with really, really low-budget films. It would be nice to think artistic considerations trump everything, but when the dialog is muffled, or there’s a background hum that changes pitch and volume every time the camera angle changes, or everything just sounds unnaturally flat or hollow, it really pulls me out of the reality of the film. Lighting is important too, but beginning filmmakers don’t seem to have quite as much of a problem with that, in my experience. Pi: Saw it. Definitely succeeded in creating an atmosphere of tension and paranoia and the central performance was effective. I don’t know how I feel about self-lobotomy being presented as a solution to life’s problems, though. Dark Star: Saw it a long time ago - possibly in its first run. I enjoyed it well enough then, but I’d like to see it again as an adult and see what I missed. I liked the talking bomb and the beach ball with claws. This film, although ostensibly a comedy, could well have been an influence on Alien, but I don’t know if it was acknowledged as such. Hollywood Shuffle: Is this something a middle-aged suburban white guy can enjoy? I don’t want to seem racist, and I realize that anyone who says “I don’t want to seem racist” automatically seems racist, but I just don’t get a lot of black humor. I tried to enjoy “In Living Color” and “The Chapelle Show,” really I did. Martin Lawrence agitates and confuses me. Is there some kind of attitude adjustment I need to make going into the film? (I have no problem with African-American drama, musicals, action films, or documentaries, but for some reason the last black comedian I thought was really funny was… Bill Cosby! And I mean back in the “chicken heart” days. Chan Is Missing: Heh-heh, Peter Wang. Tales from the Gimli Hospital: Looks like a trip. I’ll definitely add it to my list.
I liked it, and I’m a middle aged suburban white guy. There’s one sequence that goes on too long and isn’t particularly funny, and many of the stereotypes portrayed are over the top, but it’s worth seeing for its ending alone.
I doubt you could find the first version but the movie “Curdled” was excellent. it was a student film that got remade after Tarentino saw it and convinced his studio it could be done. the remake was around 2 mil I believe but the student version would have been dirt cheap. they used the same lead actress in both films as well.
As it hasn’t shown up in this thread yet, I’ll nominate Stranger Than Paradise, Jim Jarmusch’s second film (after the unreleased Permanent Vacation). Three down-and-out hipsters in New York, played by John Lurie, Richard Edson and Ezter Balint, sit around their grotty apartment talking, eventually go on a road trip to Cleveland in the dead of winter, and finally wash up in Florida. Hilarious (well, I think so) in a totally deadpan way. Started out as a thirty-minute student film, was later expanded to feature length, and was shot on B & W film stock left over from another production. Love it.
Son of a bitch, beat me to it. That was a pretty awesome use of $60,000, even for 1974. I tortured some nice young girl and dragged her to that movie at some arthouse theater. According to IMDB, Talby’s spacesuit chestplate is made from a muffin tray. It appeared that the alien was a painted beachball, or was that part of the plot? I think it was John Carpenter’s first movie, and co-written by Dan O’Bannon, co-writer of Alien.
I can’t find the budget fot the 1975 A Boy and His Dog but i think it may qualify.
Reasonably true to the Harlan Ellison story, early film appearance by Don Johnson, and should have won a award for best animal performance.
Only drawback from what I have read is that you may have a problem tracking down a reasonable print. I have a region 2 DVD I got a few years back that is pretty good though.
The sci-fi thriller Cube was done cheaply if I remember correctly. The entire movie was shot on a 14’ x 14’ set and the special f/x were done for free by an f/x company who wanted to show their support for the Canadian film industry.
Among my favorite ultra-low budget (and ultra obscure) movies are Polish Vampire in Burbank which cost about $2500 to make back in 1985, and the classic Only a Buck which never even had a theatrical release but went straight to video and was actually distributed by the film-makers themselves. To date I’ve never met another soul who’s even heard of this film, much less actually seen it.
