The Bite #58

Why Small Budgets Work Well for Horror Movies, IT: CHAPTER TWO Trailer, Geeks Who Eat, and More!

May 14, 2019

In this issue:

Horror History: Cheap Thrills
Image of the Week: Head Case
Tiny Bites – This Week’s Best Horror Headlines
Things We Love: Fear Feast
Hey, That’s Us! – Shudder in the News

HORROR HISTORY: CHEAP THRILLS

With advances in video technology and digital editing tools, filmmaking has never been more democratic — the door is open to anyone with an idea and the guts to max out a few credit cards. Considering the average American is already $137,000 in debt, what’s another $11,000? That’s how much it cost director Oren Peli to make 2009’s Paranormal Activity, which grossed more than $193 million worldwide.

Not that we’re advocating getting into horror filmmaking as a stepping stone to financial security, but the genre has proven to be a time-tested tactic for studios to make a hefty return on a bare-bones investment. Universal was the first to discover this after the Great Depression forced them to severely slash their 1931 Dracula budget. The movie ended up their highest-grossing film of the year, helping save them from bankruptcy and kicking off a string of monster classics like Frankenstein and The Mummy.

The formula stuck throughout the decades, and many of the most beloved blockbuster horror franchises birthed in the 1970s and ’80s had initial shoestring funding. Halloween cost $325,000 and killed it with a $47 million box office, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre cost $140,000 and earned $30 million, while the $550,000 spent on Friday the 13th grossed $39.7 million. And that’s just the domestic takes.

Their price tags seem extravagant though compared to The Blair Witch Project, which brought in $248.6 million worldwide in 1999 on just $60,000, thanks to the aforementioned leaps in affordable film tech and a smart plot that specifically relied on cheap digital cameras. The latest microbudget success story, One Cut of the Dead (above, and coming later in 2019 to Shudder), scores meta points for being a low budget horror movie about the making of a low budget horror movie. It only cost $25,000 and became Japan’s seventh highest-grossing film last year, pulling in more than $30 million.

In the early days, Blumhouse Production built an entire empire around the pay low/aim high concept by dangling a golden carrot in front of their directors — creative control in exchange for a smaller paycheck and larger back end returns. Everyone worked for scale, which means they were there for the love of the project.

Limited resources push everyone to get more creative, and therein lies the secret of why smaller budgets often turn out so beautifully for horror fans. Not to mention that nothing eats a film’s soul faster than a studio exec holding the purse strings and uttering the words, “I just have a few notes.”

IMAGE OF THE WEEK

Head Case

Lance Henriksen and Pumpkinhead (that’s Tom Woodruff Jr. in the Stan Winston-designed suit) may have been all laughs when they hung out together on the set of the 1988 first film in that franchise, but the on-screen relationship between man and demonic revenge monster wasn’t quite as happy.

TINY BITES

GODZILLA’S PREHISTORIC FUTURE, BRAM STOKER AWARD WINNERS & MORE

Jessica Chastain has a super creepy homecoming in the first teaser trailer for It: Chapter Two. In other words, it’s looking good.

The stars of The Lost Boys reunited for the first time in more than 30 years and Corey Feldman posted the photos.

Actress Peggy Lipton, owner of the Twin PeaksDouble R Diner in the show’s original run as well as the 2017 revival, has died at age 72.

Mike Dougherty, director of Godzilla: King of the Monster, wants the next movie about everyone’s favorite Kaiju to be prehistoric.

Cute children sat down to see Ghostbusters for the first time and came out of it asking “Why do we have to watch this movie?” (You’ll love it when you’re older, kids.)

Meanwhile, the new Ghostbusters documentaryCleanin’ Up the Town is heading to this year’s Cannes film festival.

A bloody new Brightburn clip from director David Yarovesky’s superhero horror movie certainly earned its red-band rating. (Yikes.)

Here’s why every man on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV show “was a trashfire” except for that “one perfect shining beacon of bae: Rupert Giles.”

Director Travis Stevens says he wanted his new R-rated movie Girl on the Floor to be a hard R because he hopes the feminist haunted house movie will make you “a more decent human being.”

The dizzying Wicker Man vibe coming from Ari Aster’sHereditary follow-up Midsommar is so unnerving we’re considering canceling this year’s vacation plans.

The winners of this year’s Bram Stoker Awards were announced and include horror author Victor LaValle,The Haunting of Hill House, and many others.

In the latest trailer for Jim Jarmusch’s The Dead Don’t Die, Bill Murray spells out the rules for surviving a zombie apocalypse.

Two TV hosts who know very little about horror dissected a Top 10 horror movies list and things went very badly. (Hint: He’s not named “Jason Myers.”)

THINGS WE LOVE: FEAR FEAST

The foodies at Geeks Who Eat know how to use fear to feed our hunger, whipping up dishes and drinks inspired by cinematic nightmares. Recent horror recipes include cookies inspired by The Curse of La Llorona, cocktails based on Pet Sematary and Us, and edible glass to nibble on while watchiing (what else?) M. Night Shyamalan’s Glass. Bon appétit!