Halloween (1978 John Carpenter & co-scr)

Just picking up on my last review, if the budget was only $300k, and half went on the Panaglide cameras, that means the production budget for this very professional looking film was only $150k - I think credit must go principally to cameraman Dean Cundey, who makes it look great, and canny producer (and co-writer) Debra Hill, who died before her time in 2005 (obit). This puts it in sync with Psycho, which was also made on a very low budget, independently, and went on to become a massive grosser.

Debra Hill with Donald Pleasance