10 Movies Made With Shockingly Low Budgets

The success of The Blair Witch Project in 1999 launched dozens of copycat movies, but the only one that managed to really make some money off the concept of a found-footage supernatural horror film was 2007's Paranormal Activity. The film's success went on to launch a film franchise consisting of several sequels and a spin-off.

The movie was shot for less than it costs to buy a decent car: just $15,000. That amount is almost obscene considering the film went on to make $193.3 million at the worldwide box office supplanting The Blair Witch Project as the most profitable movie ever made.

The reason the cost was so low had a lot to do with how it was filmed. The entire movie was shot with a home video camera, which required none of the expensive editing 35-mm film goes through to make it to print. This also eliminated the need for a camera crew or anything else typical of a film's production.

Furthermore, there was no script, but rather an outline of what was expected, and the actors only received $500 for their work on the movie. The biggest cost was post-production visual effects, and they were done on the fly as the footage was being finalized, which is something that isn't apparent from watching the movie.