(Long Island, N.Y.) To start off, Paranormal Activity lives up to the hype- and then some. And aside from being a truly engrossing and disturbing horror movie, it’s also important in the sense that it was made “outside the system.” It’s the brainchild of one Mr. Oren Peli, a regular Joe with no formal film training at all. One day, Oren decided to make his very own movie, tapping into his own fear of the supernatural (supposedly even Ghostbusters scared the poor man) for the subject matter.
To that end, he fixed up his house (the film’s sole shooting location), bought a high-end camcorder, auditioned a few actors, came up with a framework for his story, and just cut loose, free of any of the constraints normally imposed upon films by their backing studios. Heck, the guy didn’t even have a script, instead relying on his actors to interpret his storyline and ad lib to their heart’s content. The whole thing cost 15 grand and Peli edited it himself, most likely all on his home PC. And who would a thunk it? It worked.
Starting out in a very limited release, positive buzz and word of mouth is ensuring that Paranormal Activity is opening in more and more cities every weekend. If it’s not playing in your area yet, keep an eye out- it will be soon. I sure hope the director is at least getting a percentage of the take, ’cause this movie is raking in the dough….
Paranormal Activity can be classified in the “found footage” genre, ala 1999’s vastly inferior Blair Witch Project. That is, it takes the form of camcorder footage recorded by the characters involved that is supposedly “found” and made public so that you, the audience, can watch what happened. The plot is simple:
Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat (both their real-life names) are a couple that have recently moved in together. Now, fellas- we’ve ALL had a girl at one point in our lives that came with…shall we say…”baggage.” Sometimes this baggage comes in the form of “daddy issues” or a psycho ex-boyfriend, stuff like that. Well, consider yourself lucky if that’s all you have to deal with, as Micah has the end-all be-all of girlfriend baggage to contend with- a DEMON. Yes, an actual DEMON. As it turns out, Katie has been stalked on and off by an evil demonic menace since the tender age of 8, a fact that she didn’t bother telling poor Micah until she and Beelzebub had moved into his nice, big house. Gee, thanks Katie.
Anyway, once the demon makes itself at home it starts its shenanigans, creating various disturbances and whatnot each evening after the couple have gone to sleep. Micah, the more inventive member of the relationship, decides he’s going to buy a camcorder and get this all on video, even going so far as to set it up on a tripod near their bed while they slumber. Not having been harassed by this unknown creature for years, Micah takes the making of his documentary very lightly, something that upsets Katie. She considers his constant jovial antics insensitive, but as an audience member, I personally found Micah to be a lighthearted reprieve from the ever-darkening atmosphere. And darken it does, as the nocturnal activity of their otherworldly guest continues to escalate, leading to grim and disturbing discoveries each morning when reviewing the previous evening’s camera footage. Soon it becomes clear that their lives are in danger, but since the demon is tied to Katie and not the house, running away would prove useless. The duo struggle in vain to discover the intentions of the creature and how to possibly vanquish it, but each night brings them closer and closer to doom…
Paranormal Activity is similar to The Blair Witch Project in how it was made (hand the actors a camera and let ’em rip), but otherwise it has 100x the atmosphere, tension, humor and overall “creep” factor, and unlike Blair Witch, it actually has a great payoff at the end. The key is that Katie and Micah aren’t your usual beautiful and perfect Hollywood archetypes, but normal people doing normal things, making them far easier to relate to. The movie starts off slow, but only to establish how “normal” everything is and to set up the pieces that will be going into play later- Katie and Micah, the limited back-story that is given to the haunting, and the house itself, which becomes as much a character as the actors. That slow start becomes a slow burn, and eventually you’ll be equally anticipating and dreading bedtime, as each night only gets worse for the unfortunate couple. The mounting atmosphere of dread and fear becomes almost too much to bear, and as a jaded horror movie fan I loved every second of it.
What also makes Paranormal Activity so effective are the fears it plays upon. For the most part, it doesn’t rely on things jumping out and going boo like most films. No, it’s far craftier than that. It speaks to our most primal fears…those of the unknown, of malevolent forces completely beyond our control, forces from which the best we can hope for is indifference. Geez, even the childhood notion of your bedsheets forming an impregnable barrier against all evil is violated in this movie. Oren Peli sure knows what scares people, that’s for certain. The fact that he also managed to find two lead actors that are 100% believable in their roles and exhibit great chemistry with each other helps as well. After all, in the end, this is basically a movie about two people and a camera. Aside from two other characters that barely get a combined total of 10 minutes of screen time, Katie and Micah are the only human beings you’ll be seeing for PA’s 96 minutes, and they never bore you. Not for a second.
Paranormal Activity and its success have me hyped. It’s a great example of a film that didn’t cost $150 million, has no major special effects (unlike another recent movie involving demonic stalking, Drag Me To Hell, which failed on every level PA succeeds on), no big-name actors (barely any actors at all, in fact), yet is generating buzz and audience reactions like no film I’ve seen in years. This thing is selling out theaters like crazy and audiences I’ve seen it with go completely nuts- one frightened patron even went so far as to walk out after an especially grueling scene and not come back. Seriously! And in the lobby afterwards I found groups of people huddled together, shaking their heads and discussing what they just saw. Do you think drivel like Transformers 2 had this effect on people?
The sad fact is that you’ll never see a million-dollar film that’ll be allowed to take a chance on a concept that hasn’t been focus-tested to death to appeal to everyone and anyone. Our entertainment salvation lies with cheap little nothing flicks like this that can take risks because they cost nothing to make and the director isn’t getting bullied by studio head honchos during production. Paranormal Activity is engrossing from start to finish and does what it sets out to do to near-perfection. I welcome it as a breath of fresh air.
As for the directing future of newcomer Oren Peli, I always wonder what kind of success these kind of filmmakers will enjoy once they transition from their guerrilla-style, low-budget beginnings to mainstream projects with actual funding behind them. The Blair Witch guys both still work as directors, albeit mostly on lame, direct-to-video stuff (including Blair Witch 3, which according to Wikipedia is slated for 2010. Oh, boy!). As for Oren Peli, he’s already working on his next movie. He’s using the same “found footage” premise, but this time it takes place at Area 51. Based on the quality of his debut, that’s got me pretty interested.
Go see Paranormal Activity now. Even if you have to drive five towns over to do it.
