Horror entertainment with unusually high production values?

[Stay Up Be Easy]

Horror is a genre where unconvincing effects are something you just have to get over. I grew up in the eighties so I'm used to it.

Two recent examples stood out so much it made an impression on me though.

It from 2017
Overlord from 2018.

The latter particularly stood out. Those two are really the only ones that come to mind.

Overlord was supposed to be a Cloverfield movie. While I loved the original, and it looks perfectly fine even it wasn't that clean.

 

[FTF]

The Cabin in the Woods comes to mind...this that was $30-40m budget. Love that movie. Also I think Crimson Peak was $60m. And I'm not counting movies like I am Legend or Prometheus, etc.

Edit: Though I guess you said value, not budget :/ Kind of the same thing though. Alien, Aliens and The Thing are good ones Mona.

 

[Mona]

Alien - the only reason it was even given the go ahead from my understanding is because it was the only sci-fi project at fox after the success of star wars, then when Ridley Scott came on and said he wanted to do it seriously, none of the horror schlock of the past, and he showed fox the ideas he had for it, they doubled the budget from 4 mill to 8.

scott was a genius, the movie still looks incredible to this day, 40 years later

The Thing - 15 million dollar budget

 

[THEVOID]

I think a ton of the 80's horror movies had fantastic FX.

 

[Fancy Clown]

Aliens is a pretty big production

 

[Ashhong]

Was Overlord ever confirmed to be part of Cloverfield?

The Conjuring movies feel high budget to me, mainly because of Wan's expertise. A Quiet Place, even though it probably had a low budget, feels extremely well crafted and clean.

 

[Cobalt Thorium G]

Certain horror just isn't right with a big budget and a lot of it wouldn't be anywhere near as good if they didn't have to sweat, cry and bleed ( Texas Chainsaw, Evil Dead and the Dead trilogy come to mind).

Look how It turned out with its budget. A dodgy looking practical effect still has charm, the dodgy looking CGI in that film just makes it look dumb.

I will go for Alien though, they nailed that film's look.

 

[Rackham]

Was Overlord ever confirmed to be part of Cloverfield?

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I don't see the connection even if they confirmed it.



I liked the sci fi horror movie Pandorum.

 

[FlowersisBritish]

Hereditary was pretty good. I don't know how much it cost, but it was a lot more artsy than your typical horror story with some really interesting shots and interesting visuals. I don't know if I'd call it big budget, but at the least it visually looked a lot more interesting than most other horror releases.

 

[Transistor]

Event Horizon had a 60m budget. And it's one of only two good movies that Paul WS Anderson has made

 

[Aya]

Dreamcatcher was ..interesting (at the time). hey, I'm not talking cult movies, ya all know them

 

[kittoo]

Dreamcatcher was ..interesting (at the time). hey, I'm not talking cult movies, ya all know them

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That movie was fucking disgusting. I usually am just fine with gore and all and rarely does a movie makes me flinch, let alone feel disgusted. But there was something about dreamcatcher that made me feel like puking.

 

[Deleted member 3058]

The Ring is a pretty good example of this. Slick looking and still managing to offer a few scares and general sense of dread even in its weaker US adaptation.

That movie was fucking disgusting. I usually am just fine with gore and all and rarely does a movie makes me flinch, let alone feel disgusted. But there was something about dreamcatcher that made me feel like puking.

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Hmm.

You should watch Society. It doesn't have high production value, however.

 

[Malverde]

Annihilation is the big one from last year.

 

[Monkey Gland Sauce]

I thought Species was quite good in this respect, especially for the time.

 

[Vanillalite]

Isn't this part of the draw for Haunting of Hill House in that instead of a B movie it was a big Netflix produced show?

 

[Stay Up Be Easy]

The Cabin in the Woods comes to mind...this that was $30-40m budget. Love that movie. Also I think Crimson Peak was $60m. And I'm not counting movies like I am Legend or Prometheus, etc.

Edit: Though I guess you said value, not budget :/ Kind of the same thing though. Alien, Aliens and The Thing are good ones Mona.

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Crimson peak is another one.

That was a weird movie in general not the greatest (or even that good) but it made an impression.

-It didn't have a ton of Gore but when someone was stabbed or a moth face was eaten close upby an ant it shocked.

-Not a ton of profanity so when the sister says "I enjoy fucking my brother" it hits.

-Same for sexuality. It's only in two scenes. Where Loki is smashing his new wife in the inn. And when his sister is giving him a handy while he breast feeds on her. is not glamorized at all and it's completely unromantic and natural.

Might be legit the best use of an R rating in horror.

 

[Sibersk Esto]

Hannibal had some of the strongest production design on tv

 

[Z-Beat]

The Resident Evil movies. They're more action than horror but still.

Event Horizon, maybe.

That Wolfman reboot that came out about a decade ago.

The Mummy (all of them) and Van Helsing

 

[Scorpion Soldier]

Was Overlord ever confirmed to be part of Cloverfield?

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Rumor was that they were going to rework it into the Cloverfield universe with reshoots, which probably got canned after Paradox's critical reception and Paramount probably having enough faith in it to not sell another film to Netflix.

Keep in mind, The Cloverfield Paradox wasn't supposed to be a Cloverfield film either before they did reshoots (and even 10 Cloverfield Lane was only reworked last minute in the development of the script).

 

[THEVOID]

The Ring is a pretty good example of this. Slick looking and still managing to offer a few scares and general sense of dread even in its weaker US adaptation

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This. Ring was fantastic.

Conjuring had a great production value.

 

[Stranger Things]

The Grudge (the japanese one is way more creepy tho)

 

[astro]

Zygote, the studio short by Oat Studios, has very high production values especially for a short.

 

[LazyLain]

The Silent Hill movie had pretty nice production values, one of the better aspects about that film. The sequel however... not so much.

 

[Sgt. Demblant]

I just watched Crimson Peak last week and it is just a magnificent film. So much work was put into the imagery presented in every shot.
Del Toro's films always look much more expensive than they actually were. I can't even begin to imagine what his big budget adaptationsof At the Mountains of Madness would have looked like.

Edit: and I 100% agree with Silent Hill, mentioned in the post above. Christophe Gans has a weird and uneven filmography but his films always look great.

 

[Dan Thunder]

The Mummy (all of them) and Van Helsing

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Do you really think of The Mummy series of films as horror?!

 

[Violence Jack]

Sleepy Hollow
Hollow Man

 

[T002 Tyrant]

Do you really think of The Mummy series of films as horror?!

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I know they meant the mainstream series, but the original series was horror, it's a shame universal don't have the balls to make The Mummy a horror film again.

Anyway in answer to OP: IT Chapter 1 was $37 million.

 

[Z-Beat]

Do you really think of The Mummy series of films as horror?!

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The later ones are classified as action horror so yeah.