Insidious (2010) - $100 Million

Following their massive success with the Saw franchise, filmmakers James Wan and Leigh Whannell teamed up with Blumhouse to create a classical ghost story on a micro-budget. The chilling story centers on a young family whose son mysteriously falls into an inexplicable, comatose state after exploring their new attic, leading the desperate parents to discover that malicious, malevolent spirits from a dark, purgatorial dimension known as "The Further" are attempting to possess the boy's body. On a psychological level, the film serves as a heartbreaking, exhausting metaphor for the heavy toll of repressed generational trauma and childhood grief, illustrating how the buried, unaddressed pain of a parent can actively bleed into the lives of their offspring and showing that you can never truly outrun your past. Produced for a mere $1.5 million, the movie completely skipped gratuitous violence to focus entirely on chilling atmosphere and sudden jump scares. The psychological approach worked perfectly, generating a massive $100 million at the global box office and spawning a highly lucrative, multi-film cinematic universe.