This is my answer. I have the DVD two-pack with this and Desperado. I still can't believe that Robert Rodriguez went through Pharmaco experiments to finance this. I always saw those ads in the paper when I was looking for a job, but I never knew anybody who actually went through with it.
I'd almost forgotten about a few more very low-budget flix I've seen -- some of them 'shot-on-video' dreck that I thought was shot on film and I was wrong. NAIL GUN MASSACRE was sludge. I remember seeing it decades ago in a nice BIG BOX from Magnum Entertainment. I rented it! Too bad the movie was so lowly; it should have been better than it was despite the low-budget, but I reckon that's what happens when there's no talent on either side of the video recorder . . . COPPERHEAD (1983?) was another movie that featured a cool video box from VCI. Barely watchable because it wasn't very involving. It did feature real snakes, however. HISS! BOARDINGHOUSE (1982). This really is *swill*. Paragon Video used to have a preview for this mess on so many of their video releases I couldn't keep track of them all. In 'HorrorVision'! "I wonder . . . BOARDING HOUSE . . . where the Rent won't Kill you but something else WILL!" Too bad the movie was so awful. Low-budget doesn't have to mean "Unwatchable Dreck". Sheesh. One thing I have noted written about "Boardinghouse" is that despite being shot on videotape for some inexplicable reason it was booked into theaters and was transferred to film and the 1985 Paragon release used an actual film print of the movie instead of the original videotape which the earlier Paragon releases were. → Maybe the movie looked less incompetent on film than it did on videotape? I have no plans to watch it again and find out, but it's been re-issued on DVD and Blu-Ray and even features a 155-minute version of the film taken from the videotape master if one is a glutton for punishment! Recommendation: Avoid BOARDINGHOUSE at all costs. -------------------------------------------------------------------- ALSO: Re Post #25. I've seen a 'Harry Kerwin' movie, too. CHEERING SECTION (1977). Filmed in Florida in 1976.
I also had Satan's Black Wedding inflicted on me but I turned it off after the bubblegum fangs appeared.
@unclefred: You must forgive the fangs to truly enjoy the movie. It helps to watch the movie on a grainy, blurry VHS tape.
More very low budget movies that have crossed my viewfinder: THE BUSHWHACKER (1968) A no-budget sleaze-o-rama! Looking for cheap, exploitive thrills? Look no further than "The Bushwhacker"! MR. ANGEL (1966) This is another of those movies that 'Something Weird Video' rescued from permanent oblivion. I bought myself a copy of this from SWV. I had received in the mail one of those SWV update booklets they used to send out. This would've been in 2009. MR. ANGEL was a 'New Release' then from SWV so I spent the $10 bucks to get a tape.
I just remembered a few more very low-budget flix I have endeavoured to watch over the years -or- try and watch. SPAWN OF THE SLITHIS (1978). AKA: "Slithis". I couldn't get through this mess. Turned it off before it was over. Was so un-involving I couldn't finish it. Ugh! MILPITAS MONSTER, The (1975). I believe this was filmed in Milpitas, California. I watched it once. It was ok for what it was. Also, if you have a nostalgia 'fix' for mid-70s California this movie should quench that! INVASION OF THE GIRL SNATCHERS (1973). A re-titled movie as the film's original title is incomprehensible. No budget swill that's really bad. NIGHT OF THE BLOODY TRANSPLANT (1970). This looks to have been filmed in a wintry Flint, Michigan in late 1967. I have a small amount of fondness for this awful movie because it's like a time capsule. I can't think of any other movie filmed in Flint, Michigan in the late '60s. A real period piece complete with a nightclub scene featuring a couple of terrible 'entertainers'. The entire selling point of the film was that the filmmakers supposedly cribbed some real-life footage of open-heart surgery so they built an entire film around it. Alreet then.
A low low low budget grindhouse movie shot in and around Salinas/Monterey, CA over a few recent years. It's all amateur 'actors' in a very loose, improvised 'script', following a Nazi loving hit woman and a bass playing accomplice/boss. It has some funny moments but goes for the gross=outs (the violence is comical because the 'special effects' are sooo obviously fake). In fact everything in it is so bad it's camp. I'm actually in the movie, but I wouldn't recommend anyone I ever met to see it.
Lots of low budget movies including lots of the Poverty Row classics, Plan 9, Glen or Glenda, Carnival of Souls, Manos: The Hands of Fate, etc.
El Mariachi might have the best "movie quality vs the budget" ratio, if you take the original bugdet into the account. I haven't seen Carnival of Souls though.
Speaking of 'Poverty Row' productions . . . the hour-long 1946 suspense movie STRANGLER OF THE SWAMP is a fair amount of fun. Since there's so much fog it helps disguise how low the budget was so that's a good thing. And I like foggy movies, too, so that was another selling point for me watching the movie.
Cherokee Creek. Made by friend so I won't critique it. Ticked Off Trannies With Knives. Same suspects, even worse
What are the lowest-budget movies you've watched? The one I'm currently making. It's a $100,000. in hardware to make a no-budget movie.
Had to be the B&W 50s scifi movies I watched on TV as a kid. You know the ones with a dorky hero who can barely act, excruciatingly few action scenes and lots of long, long explanations in front of a blackboard.
Besides the films already mentioned that were MST3K fodder, I would add Robert Townshend’s Hollywood Shuffle, which he financed by maxing out his credit cards. I would also add, in the name of family pride, my 11 yr. old grandnephew’s efforts as part of an after school moviemaking class.
