I'd say the lowest budget movie I can think of would be Eraserhead. It was made for $10,000 dollars.
Any cheaper flicks?
Depends on what level you are looking at, My friends and I have made movies for a lot cheaper than $10,000
Brian's right. Depends what you're looking for.
EL MARIACHI, Robert Rodriguez first full length feature was filmed for $7,000. (Of course, distribution must have cost much more than that.) It's the most competent cheap movie I can think of.
Then there's Kansas City's Todd Sheets. Somehow a copy of his movie MOONCHILD ended up at the library I work at (Phoenix Public). I can't believe that it cost more than $10,000 to make. It's not as good as EL MARIACHI, but I thought it was entertaining.
And let's not get into my CITIZEN KANE tribute involving a pile of puke. . .
I'm convinced that the entire budget for The Blair Witch Project was $100. They didn't even have a trpod for crying out loud!!!!!
Meat Market 1 & 2 cost about $2,000 each to make but they are shot on video movies. Lowest I can think of.
Redneck Zombies couoldnt have cost more than $100 to make, im sure. Crappy film too.
Blair Witch cost about $100,000.....gotta remember, a lot of that was shot on film stock, which is really expensive. Redneck Zombies cost about $50,000, most of that going to effects.
I made a shot-on-video feature-length movie called Quaker College Massacre when I was in college......since I got to use the cameras and editing equipment for free the whole thing ended up only costing about $200 spent over the course of 3 1/2 years of on again off again shooting and editing.
Larry Buchanan's film THE NAKED WITCH budgeted for $8,000 on 16mm. I gotta tell you, it's better than his AIP-TV remakes which were all funded $10,000 each.
Oh, and Andy Milligan's first feature LIZ (a.k.a. THE PROMISCUOUS SEX) cost $7,500 on 16mm. For a lost feature, I heard some film critics gave the film a rave.
Dirty Cop, No Donut reportedly cost a total of $200. Shot-on-video, the director edited it by pressing "play" and "pause" on a VHS deck.
Nathan
What about a piece of crap movie called Boarding House? Really, really bad! A demonstration of telekinesis consisted of the guy staring at a vase on a small table until someone off camera starts shaking it, making the vase fall over.
Easy, some people in my school's attempt at a slasher film!