Stronghold (1985)

We need more films like this. Clearly the budget was pretty small. We saw the same cut of a helicopter swooping for no reason several times. In fact at the start, maybe within the first few minutes, we saw a lot of the same cuts of the military advancing.

The locations were few, also scouted on the cheap. In fact, nothing was too over-the-top Fx wise, location wise, even extras wise.

But is still managed to be tense and entertaining. In conveyed at times an extremely claustrophobic atmosphere without actually leaving the farm house. It conveyed a real sense of danger (amped up by the presence of a baby in a looming shoot out).

And it was all done on the cheap... but then again it was a Dutch film from the 80s, but cheap as far as Hollywood standards go. That actually says a lot of what can be done with a limited budget, as far as entertainment goes.

Instead they studios are wasting millions on extravaganzas with a divisive political message and attacking the viewers... because they lost money on them, instead of making more films like this to cover the costs.

These films will never be blockbusters, but they don't need to be to recoup the expenses. Some of them, like Se7en, might be surprise hits, but studios can make a dozen or so of these to pay for one extravaganza that may or may not recoup the costs (but has a better chance if it's politics free and doesn't attack the fans).