As anyone who’s ever glanced at some of the better entries at r/twosentencehorror will tell you, the genre thrives on restrictions.
Here's a creepy good 'un: "'Please, God, don't let it look in the closet,’ I silently prayed. 'Please, God, don't let it look in the closet,' it parroted back from the next room." You can't do that with baby shoes, you anonymous hack!
Silent Hill 2 remake’s senior narrative designer Barbara Kciuk reckons this principle extends to much bigger productions. "It is a bit niche, but actually, the interesting part about horror is that it is one of the best ratios when it comes to the cost of production and the earnings," she recently told TheGamer’s Rhiannon Bevan. "If you take Paranormal Activity, it cost pennies and it made millions," Kciuk continued.
TheGamer follow up in their article with The Blair Witch Project, Get Out, and Terrifier 3 as examples of low budget horror films that made a lot more than they cost.
Get Out, for example, was the highest grossing debut based on an original screenplay in history as of 2017, raking in over $250 million worldwide on a budget $4.5 million. "This is one of the genres in both film and games where you actually can take very little resources, and the game or the movie looking cheap might actually be an advantage," Kciuk went on, citing the success of Buckshot Roulette. "It's a very small game, and it was done in like a month or two, and it earned millions of dollars.