10 Great Low Budget Movies Which Cleaned Up At The Box Office

6. Paranormal Activity

As John Carpenter's Halloween has already demonstrated, low budget horror movies have the potential to recoup the costs of production a thousand fold if they find the right audience - Paranormal Activity, produced on a significantly lower budget, took the ratio of budget to box office to entirely different heights. The premise is simple: young couple Katie and Micah move into their new home in San Diego and shortly after a series of strange supernatural occurences begin to disturb more than just their sleep. A found footage film, Paranormal Activity uses footage captured from handheld camcorders and other cameras positioned around the home to build up tension, as the presence of a demon becomes increasingly evident. Bare bones horror, but audiences lapped it up - as always, shame about the law of diminishing returns when it comes to the sequels... Budget: $15,000 Box office: $193.3 million