has been there. Even Jason Blum, who made Paranormal Activity, a movie that cost a whopping $15,000 to make, turned it into a multi-billion dollar company. Whatever the reason, horror movies cost the least, but they attract the most passionate filmmakers and a lot of people who want to be scared.
Recent movies like Skinamarink, Terrifier 2, and The Outwaters continue this trend of low-budget movies doing well in an industry where most movies cost over $100 million. But low-budget horror movies don’t usually get as much attention because they are usually only available on one of a dozen streaming services and are buried under a lot of other content. So let’s shine a light on some low-budget horror movies that you probably haven’t heard of but that deserve your attention.
1BR (2018)
IBR is about Sarah, who wants to be a costume designer and moves to Los Angeles to do so. She is broke and can’t afford anything decent, but somehow she finds a nice one-bedroom apartment in a quiet complex that isn’t too expensive. But she didn’t know it, but all of the tenants were part of a dangerous cult, and they wanted to recruit her any way they could.
David Marmor’s first movie as a director is tightly put together and very unsettling. Even though the movie loses its way a bit at the end, there’s enough here to keep you going. If you like movies about cults and have nothing better to do on a rainy day, IBR is a good choice.
A Dark Song (2016)
A Dark Song is a religious horror movie that is more sad than scary. It is about Sophia, a grieving mother who hires a mean occultist to perform a months-long ritual from the Book of Abramelin that, if done correctly, will let her talk to her dead son.
A Dark Song is mostly a chamber piece, with the two troubled characters performing the hard rite while they are trapped in an isolated farmhouse. Even though there are enough scary parts in the movie for it to be called horror, director Liam Gavin wisely focuses on the two main characters, who are both fighting their own demons. A Dark Song is hard to beat for people who want their horror movies to have more themes and emotional depth.
Antiviral (2012)
Antiviral takes place in an alternate world where people who want to be closer to their favorite celebrities buy celebrity pathogens and viruses. In the movie, we follow Syd March, who is in charge of collecting viruses like the common cold and Chlamydia. Syd gives himself these viruses to sneak out of the lab and sell on the black market so he can make a little extra money on the side. But when he injects himself with a mysterious and deadly virus, things go wrong.
Brandon Cronenberg is the son of the other famous Cronenberg, and his recent movies, Possessor and Infinity Pool, live up to the family name. But his first movie, Antiviral, showed that he was the rightful heir to his father’s legacy. The twisted apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, and Antiviral will be right up your alley if you like body horror and anything “Cronenbergian.”
Beyond the Black Rainbow (2010)
Panos Cosmatos’s latest movie, Mandy, has made him a horror legend. But the stylish director got a lot of attention with Beyond the Black Rainbow, a film with a lot of atmosphere and a lot of style that came out in 2010. In the movie, Elana, a woman with telekinetic powers, is held prisoner at the Arboria Institute, a new-age commune/high-tech research facility run by the evil Dr. Nyle. As she tries to get away from the monster psychiatrist who is holding her hostage, she finds out how strong her powers really are.
Black Rainbow is weird and surreal. It’s full of neon colors and has a synth-heavy score that reminds me of low-budget sci-fi movies from the 1970s and 1980s. At times, the movie moves so slowly that it’s almost like a glacier. However, it sounds and feels like nothing else out there. If you can find the movie’s unique tone, you’ll find a lot to like about it.
Brain Damage (1988)
Frank Henenlotter’s horror-comedy Brain Damage is another strange gem from the 1980s. It is a crazy, funny piece of art. In the movie, Brian finds out that he has been infected by a parasite that looks like a worm and talks. This parasite is called Aylmer, which is pronounced “Elmer,” which makes it even funnier. Aylmer gives Brian an injection of a fluid that causes hallucinations and is very addictive. This gives Brian a happy, euphoric high. But while he’s high, Aylmer takes over Brian’s body and uses it to kill other people and eat their brains.
Like Henenlotter’s last movie, the dirty and silly Basket Case, Brain Damage makes the most of its ridiculously funny premise by using a mix of puppetry and stop-motion visual effects to bring the movie to life. Even though it’s cheesy, Brain Damage goes to some really strange places and makes a strong point about how bad addiction is.
CAM (2020)
Cam is a psychological horror movie made by Daniel Goldhaber, who has never made a movie before. The Blumhouse-made movie is about the seedy world of webcam pornography. It follows Alice, an ambitious camgirl whose life starts to fall apart when she finds out that her Doppelganger has taken over her account.
Cam is different because it is honest. Isa Mazzei, a former cam girl and co-writer of the movie, used her own experiences as a cam girl to make a realistic picture of this world that most people don’t know about. Madeline Brewer, who plays two different characters in the movie, gives it her all. It’s a good little thriller that’s definitely worth your time.
Carnival of Souls (1962)
Carnival of Souls helped start the trend of low-budget horror movies in a lot of ways. The movie, which cost only $33,000 to make, is about Mary Henry, who moves to a new city after a car accident changes her life. She doesn’t know why, but she’s drawn to an abandoned carnival, where a scary and maybe even otherworldly stranger is following her.
Herk Harvey only made one full-length movie, Carnival of Souls. Harvey shot a lot of the movie in a guerilla style to save money. He paid locals to stay out of the scenes and filmed in places where they didn’t have permission. He came up with a number of low-cost camera tricks to replace expensive ones, like rear projection, that added to the creepy and surreal feel of the movie. At the time, the movie wasn’t seen by many people, but it now has a strong cult following. Its surreal images and haunting organ-heavy score have influenced many of the biggest names in horror, such as George A. Romero, David Lynch, and James Wan.
Caveat (2020)
Caveat is an Irish horror movie written and directed by Damian Mc Carthy. It is about Isaac, a drifter who has lost his memory and takes a job looking after a troubled woman in an abandoned house on an isolated island. Isaac has to wear a harness that is chained to him, which makes it hard for him to move around. Olga, the troubled woman, often goes into a trance. Oh, and Olga’s parents, whom she may or may not have killed, may still haunt the house. There’s also the creepy wind-up rabbit…
Most of all, Mc Carthy is a master at making an atmosphere full of fear and dread. Some parts of the story are hard to believe (why would anyone take this job?) , the movie makes the most of its small budget and single location to make a throwback horror movie that we don’t see as often these days.
Cheap Thrills (2013)
For money, how far would you go? The scary-comedy Cheap Thrills by E.L. Katz is all about this question. Craig meets Colin and Violet by accident at a dive bar after he’s fired from his job and kicked out of his house. The rich couple is out celebrating Violet’s birthday. When they hear about Craig’s dire financial situation, they suggest a game: do what we ask, and we’ll pay you well for it. It’s basically a twisted version of the game “truth or dare,” where the payouts get bigger as the dares get dirtier. You’ll laugh and you’ll cry, but mostly you’ll just have a good time.
Come to Daddy (2019)
Come to Daddy by Ant Timpson might have the best title on this list. In this horror-comedy from New Zealand, Elijah Wood plays Norval Greenwood, a DJ in his thirties with an odd name who gets a letter from his long-lost father asking to see him for the first time in years. Norval takes him up on the offer right away, eager to make up with his father and start over. But when he gets to his grandfather’s house, he starts to feel like something is…wrong. The fun surprises would be ruined if I told you more about the plot.
Elijah Wood is perfect, as is his great bowl cut, and the movie’s many twists and turns are shown with a crazy amount of joy. The movie that Ant Timpson and writer Toby Harvard made is a lot of fun and definitely worth a look.
Dead & Buried (1981)
This little-known 80s gem takes place in the small coastal town of Potter’s Bluff, where tourists are being brutally killed by the locals for no clear reason. But things get even stranger when these dead people start coming back to life out of the blue.
When it first came out, Dead & Buried was, well, dead and buried, just like its name. The film was banned in the U.K. for a few years because it was thought to be “video nasty.” At first, not many people saw it, but when the ban was lifted, it gained a small cult following. The movie is a lot smarter than its slasher premise lets on. It was written by Ronald Shusset and Dan O’Bannon, who also wrote Alien. And the mood that director Gary Sherman makes is so great that you can almost smell the ocean and feel the crisp, salty air. People who liked John Carpenter’s The Fog will definitely enjoy this.
Deadstream (2022)
With their horror-comedy Deadstream, Joseph and Vanessa Winter did something very impressive: they found a new way to use the overused “found footage” genre. Shawn, played by Joseph Winter, is a disgraced Twitch streamer who tries to win back his many fans by spending one night alone in a house that is known for being haunted and streaming the whole thing. What happens next is both scary and often very funny, as this annoying and very talkative internet personality fights for his life after calling up some angry spirits for internet fame.
Deadstream is like a mix of The Evil Dead and The Blair Witch Project. It takes the best parts of both movies and makes something new. But the real discovery is Joseph Winter, who not only writes and directs the movie with his wife, but also plays the main role. He strikes the perfect balance between being annoying and being sweet, which makes us fall in love with a character who is usually very annoying. Unlike most of the other movies on this list, Deadstream is guaranteed to be a hit with everyone, so gather your friends and family and watch one of the best horror movies of 2022.
Hell House LLC (2015)
Hell House LLC is a “found footage” “documentary” about a group of friends who are getting ready for the grand opening of their new haunted house, Hell House. But on the first night, fifteen people die when something strange goes wrong. In the typical found-footage style, the movie shows what happens before opening night and reveals the true, horrible cause of the tragedy at the center of the movie.
Hell House LLC doesn’t do anything new, but it is a good old-fashioned haunted house movie with a lot of good scares and a real sense of dread. Hell House is an oasis of pure horror in a genre that is full of bad movies made by amateurs.
Hobo with a Shotgun (2011)
Look, you don’t have to keep reading if the title got your attention. Hobo with a Shotgun is about as violent, rude, and in-your-face as the title suggests. Rutger Hauer plays – you guessed it – the nameless Hobo with a Shotgun, whose travels take him to Hope City, a town full of brutal gangs, violence, and widespread decay. He wants to start a new life, but Hope Town is hell on Earth, and if Hauer’s Hobo ever wants to make his dreams come true, he’ll have to take justice into his own hands and clean up the city with his trusted pump-action shotgun.
Jason Eisner’s violent exploitation movie started out as a fake trailer in Tarantino and Rodriguez’s double-feature tribute to the beauty and violence of exploitation movies from the 1970s, Grindhouse. But Eisner was given two million dollars to turn his short film into a full-length movie, just like Machete and, soon, Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving. And boy did he deliver. The vulgar pleasures on display will make you laugh, cringe, and stare in shock. Don’t forget.
Hunter Hunter (2020)
Joseph, Anne, and Renee, a small family of fur trappers who live in the middle of the woods, are the main characters of Hunter Hunter. But their peaceful way of life is turned upside down when a wild wolf comes back and threatens not only their way of life but also their lives. When Joseph goes to hunt the wolf, he leaves his wife and daughter behind to take care of themselves. He doesn’t know that this puts them in the path of another dangerous animal that is hiding in the woods.
Hunter Hunter, Shawn Linden’s gory little horror gem from 2020, didn’t get a lot of attention when it came out, but this indie shocker is more than worth your time. Everyone in the cast does a great job, but Camille Sullivan as the family matriarch and Nick Stahl as the mysterious guest who shows up on their doorstep stand out. You might think you know where this movie is going, but then it pulls the rug out from under you with a brutal ending that will make even the toughest stomachs a little queasy.
I Can See You (2008)
I Can See You is a low-budget horror movie that was shot on video and is more than the sum of its parts. The set-up is pretty simple: three young men and their girlfriends go into the woods for a photoshoot, but when one of the women goes missing in a mysterious way, things slowly get worse and worse until they are completely out of control.
If you can get past the (admittedly) amateurish production quality, you’re in for a real treat. This is a very strange mix of slow-burning horror and strange, creepy comedy, like something you might see on Tim and Eric. Even though the movie moves at a snail’s pace, it does a great job of keeping a strangely creepy mood. And if you stick with it, you’ll be rewarded: the movie’s ending is a hallucinogenic nightmare that looks like it came straight from David Lynch’s head. This isn’t for everyone, but fans of David Lynch and the way he makes movies will like it a lot.
Like Me (2017)
Like We’re All Going to the World’s Fair from last year, Like Me looks at how social media affects young people. Addison Timlin plays Kiya, who posts a video of herself robbing a convenience store online and becomes a small internet sensation. Her newfound fame makes her want to do more bad things, and she wants to record every minute of it. Along the way, she kidnaps a paint-snorting drifter (played by indie horror legend Larry Fessenden) and uses him in a number of disturbing ways in her criminal schemes.
Like Me is different from other movies in the same genre because it has a unique, chaotic look. Rob Mockler, the film’s director, really knows how to show the fast-paced life of a teenager who is obsessed with the internet and is also a psychopath. He does this by putting grit and bright neon colors into the movie. You wouldn’t be wrong to compare Like Me to Spring Breakers, but it’s a different kind of strange. It will make you feel gross, laugh, and get under your skin.
LUZ (2018)
Luz, a German horror movie by Tilman Singer, is about a ghost named Luz. Luz is a young cab driver who has been being chased by a demon since she was a child. One late night, she walks into a police station looking for help, but the demon is already there. Luz and the demon who has been trying to get inside her for years play a weird game of cat and mouse.
Even though this plot sounds simple at first, the movie is anything but. The way the movie is made by director Tilman Singer is mostly experimental. He plays with time and blurs the lines between reality and fantasy a lot. Luz is a rewarding experience for those who are willing to trust the director, even though some people may find it confusing and frustratingly vague. It might take two viewings to really understand what’s going on, but at 70 minutes, it’s not a huge task. Luz is a great choice for people who want something different and, for lack of a better word, “artsy.”
Piercing (2018)
Piercing is based on the same-named novel by Ry Murakami. It’s about a man named Reed (Christopher Abbott) who seems to be a normal family man. He checks into an expensive hotel and hires a prostitute (Mia Wasikowska) with the intention of killing her. But it looks like she might be just as crazy as he is.
Piercing is a tight two-person play that takes place mostly in a single hotel room. It is a chamber piece that goes from being very scary to being very funny. The movie has a dreamy, almost surreal feel to it, which really makes it stand out as something weird and different. It’s naughty, but a lot of fun.
Resolution (2012)
With movies like The Endless and Something in the Dirt, directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead have been steadily building a name for themselves in the world of philosophical, low-budget horror. They’ve since moved on to bigger projects, but Resolution was their first film. It’s a low-budget two-hander about Michael, a soon-to-be father who gets a scary email from his friend Chris, a drug addict. Michael goes to Chris’s small cabin in the woods, where he has locked himself up because he thinks Chris is in the middle of a potentially fatal binge. He wants to help Chris kick his habit for good. But things don’t go as planned, as they often do in old cabins in the woods.
The beauty of Resolution is how easy it is to understand. Benson and Moorhead had to get very creative with their story because they only had $20,000 to spend. Spoilers won’t be given because, like most of these movies, going in blind is the best way to enjoy them, but Resolution does a great job of dipping its toes into both the sci-fi and horror worlds. It has a lot of atmosphere and some really unsettling scenes that will stay with you for a long time.
Society (1989)
Society by Brian Yuzna is a hidden gem from the end of the 1980s that you should pay attention to. In the movie, Bill Whitney, a normal teen from a wealthy family, finds out that his parents are part of a dangerous cult for the wealthy. If I told you much more, it would ruin how shocking and even grotesque the movie is.
Society has some scary practical effects. If you think of Eyes Wide Shut, which was directed by Stuart Gordon, you’ll get a good idea of what’s in store for adventurous moviegoers who are willing to go on this strange journey. It takes a while for the movie to get going, but once it does, there is nothing else like it. Original and different in every way, but not for the faint of heart.
The Evil Within (2017)
The Evil Within is based on the Son of Sam murders, in which David Berkowitz killed six people after his neighbor’s possessed dog told him to. The story follows Dennis Peterson, a mentally unstable man who makes friends with his evil reflection in an old mirror. Dennis has had nightmares all his life, and eventually a demon called the Cadaver takes over him and tells him to go on a killing spree.
All signs point to The Evil Within being a passion project for director Andrew Getty, who was also the grandson of oil magnate J. Paul Getty. Filming began in 2002 and went on off and on for the next 15 years. Getty spent six million dollars of his own money making unique camera rigs, complicated sets, and elaborate practical effects, and he was obsessed with every little part of the movie. Andrew Getty died in 2015, so he never got to see his film finished. The color grading and editing were still not done when he died. Michael Luceri, who edited the movie and was a longtime friend of Getty’s, finished it and put it out in his honor. The Evil Within is not an easy movie to watch, but it is also one of the most interesting and visually original horror movies that has come out in a while.
The Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears (2013)
The Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears is a strange movie that’s hard to explain. It’s a lot like its name. If you could call it a plot, it’s about Dan, a businessman who comes home from work to find that his wife has disappeared. He starts his own investigation by going from apartment to apartment in his building to ask questions. But Dan, like the rest of the audience, only has more questions.
Strange Color is hard to like more than any other movie on this list. Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani have made “nu-giallo,” a style that is all their own. Strange Color was heavily influenced by the colorful and highly stylized Italian giallo films of the 1970s and 1980s. It doesn’t have much of a story, but it’s a feast for the eyes and has great sound design. If you like this kind of scary movies, you should add this one to your list.
The Void (2016)
The Void, by Steven Kostanki and Jeremy Gillespie, is a cheap Lovecraftian horror movie. In the movie, a small group of people are trapped in a hospital by creepy cultists and strange creatures from another world. The movie is a real throwback to the crazy monster movies of the 1980s. It’s like a scary version of “Assault on Precinct 13.”
But the most important thing about The Void is what it does in real life. The directors used IndieGogo to raise money from the public for the creature effects. They were able to raise about $82,000 to bring these Lovecraftian horrors to life. And, unlike in many other monster movies, these monsters aren’t hidden or hidden in shadows. Instead, they are shown in all their gruesome, slimy glory. The movie was a labor of love for the people who made it, who called it a “soul-crushing nightmare” to make. But it sure paid off. This is good old-fashioned horror.
Z (2019)
Not to be confused with Costa-Gavras’s groundbreaking political thriller with the same name, Brandon Christensen’s Z takes a well-known plot and gives it a fresh, horrifying twist. In the movie, a small family is scared by their son’s bad imaginary friend.
Even though the story isn’t new, Branden Christensen creates a suffocating atmosphere with what I think is one of the most shocking and sudden jump scares I’ve seen in a while. It hits you like a slap in the face and a punch in the gut. For a few minutes afterward, you’ll be wondering, “Did that really just happen?” The movie isn’t perfect—there are some plot twists that are hard to believe and a bad CGI scene at the end—but Christensen shows a lot of guts that is worth admiring.
