(Quickly written review, so I apologize for the rough edges)
Why is there not a thread yet for this film? A $15,000 budget, a first-time director, a festival flick that was quickly picked up by a major Hollywood studio. I just saw a screening of this film last night (10:40 PM, to be exact), and I can tell you this: It is sure to be deemed the scariest thriller of the year. Without any CG or gore to speak of, all of the effects are practical, making the scares that much more authentic.
The film starts out slowly, centering around Micah, who has just bought a brand-new camera. His girlfriend, Katie, claims to have been haunted since childhood by a dark looming figure; Micah deduces that in order to get evidence of the spiritual goings-on, he will set the camera on a tripod in their bedroom, where it will record all night.
Night scenes show the haunting demon's razor-sharp reign of terror on the couple, whereas the day scenes help to capture the slow but wholly realistic deterioration of the couple's relationship.
It's the kind of film that makes you want to sleep with the lights on for a couple of nights afterwards. It is also the kind of film that lives up to its hype. Michael Phillips call the thrills "medium scares;" I prefer to think of them as "methodically executed."
---- OSCAR FYC: Best Picture - "Up" Best Actor - Michael Stuhlbarg, "A Serious Man" Best Actress - Saoirse Ronan, "Lovely Bones" Best Supporting Actor - Christoph Waltz, "Basterds" Best Original Screenplay - "Up"
Posts: 1924 | Location: Right behind you. | Registered: December 07, 2007
"Paranormal Activity": Somewhere Hitch**** is Smiling by BETSY SHARKEY
Just for the record, the time to tell your significant other that an evil force has been stalking you since you were 8 is long before you're engaged and have moved in together.
I'm not suggesting the whole demon/ghost/unidentified whatever is a deal breaker, but it should at least get a mention.
Consider the case of Katie (Katie Featherston) and Micah (Micah Sloat), the young couple at the terrifying center of "Paranormal Activity." By the time Katie tells Micah about her "problem" and by the time Micah takes it seriously, that "thing that goes bump in the night" has really built up a head of steam.
Before the lights go back up -- and at some point you may wonder whether they ever will -- there will be a very tight coil of anxiety buried deep in your gut that is very hard to get rid of.
The man to curse for all this darkness is Israeli-born writer-director Oren Peli, a video-game designer turned filmmaker who has created a psychological thriller of such small scale and yet such heightened effect that no doubt Hitch****, wherever he may be, is smiling. That the film was shot over just a few days in the director's house, with no money, no stars and no studio involved until much, much later, is a testament to Peli's natural instincts. Though the story does not have either the sophistication or the complexity of the master, the first-time director understands that it's what you don't see, and the way in which you don't see it, that counts.
The film is set in the comfortable affluence of a San Diego suburb, where bad things aren't supposed to happen. We're dropped into Katie and Micah's lives just as Micah is setting up a DIY surveillance system so that he can record any suspicious activity in the house.
As he begins shooting footage and talking to Katie, we realize that he's merely going to elaborate lengths to prove that she is just imagining things.
Night after night, the time-lapse camera keeps its unblinking eye on their bedroom, where most of the action takes place. That footage, along with the free-style video that Micah shoots himself, is our primary point of view on this story, which works to add a certain veracity in a YouTube/Facebook way. Though the footage looks real enough, you can also sense a bona-fide filmmaker's hand in the proceedings.
There's not much to the story: Evil has its eye on Katie, the couple tries to escape or outwit it, and we know historically how that tends to go. There is lots of scary stuff in between and, in this case, very little comic relief beyond the psychic/ghost-buster who makes house calls.
Featherston and Sloat do a good job as the couple in the middle of the mess, as they swing between bickering about the thing and being frightened by it.
Now about that scary stuff. We humans must come with a genetic marker clearly labeled "fear of the unknown." How else to explain why your breathing stops, stomach clenches and you suddenly develop bat ears in the face of the mundane -- a light goes off, a door closes. The trick, of course, comes in not being able to explain the who, what and why of it.
Peli works at mining the unknown, the unknowable, like a minimalist, using small moments and virtually no special effects exceedingly well. As so often is the case in the horror genre, the world he's created for Katie and Micah is a closed one -- if they leave the house, we don't see it; friends and relatives don't drop by.
Like "The Blair Witch Project," another faux documentary-style horror movie, "Paranormal Activity" has been building buzz on the Internet, where, according to crazed publicity dispatches from the studio that I'm pretty sure are part of a guerrilla-style marketing campaign, fans "demanded" that it be put in theaters immediately. (I didn't realize you could do that, because I've been wanting to see "My Friend Flicka" on the big screen forever.)
You can understand why studios would be keen to make these fans happy, since "Blair Witch" cost roughly $60,000 and went on to make $248.6 million worldwide. Compared with "Blair Witch," "Paranormal" was made on the cheap, with a budget of around $15,000. With midnight screenings selling out, even with marketing costs, this film will soon be wallowing in gravy.
Meanwhile, Peli's at work on a new thriller, "Area 51," this time with a real budget and Hollywood muscle behind him. You just hope he doesn't lose his scary along the way.
---- OSCAR FYC: Best Picture - "Up" Best Actor - Michael Stuhlbarg, "A Serious Man" Best Actress - Saoirse Ronan, "Lovely Bones" Best Supporting Actor - Christoph Waltz, "Basterds" Best Original Screenplay - "Up"
Posts: 1924 | Location: Right behind you. | Registered: December 07, 2007
A Blumhouse Prods. and Solana Films production. Produced by Oren Peli, Amir Sbeda and Toni Taylor. Directed, screenplay by Oren Peli. Camera (color, HD), Peli; editor, Peli. Reviewed at Slamdance Fest (Narrative Competition), Jan. 18, 2008. Running time: 96 MIN.
With: Micah Sloat, Katie Featherson, Mark Fredrichs, Amber Armstrong, Tim Piper, Randy McDowell.
A couple decide to document poltergeist-like disturbances in "Paranormal Activity." They find that, as on reality TV shows, bad behavior tends to worsen when you train a camera on it. Orin Peli's crew-less debut feature is one of the best genre spins on the pseudo-nonfiction 1st-person-cam since "The Blair Witch Project," with which it shares improvised performances, no explicit violence or "solution," and a gradual escalation of chills. Horror fans who value credible creepiness over the usual splatdom will welcome this in suitable fest slots and niche DVD release.
Young, well-off San Diego duo Katie (Katie Featherson) and Micah (Micah Sloat) have lately been experiencing inexplicable thumps in the night. Actually, she's suffered occasional spookery since childhood--it (or It) seems to follow her around. A psychic specializing in ghosts tells them he can"t help; they need a demonologist. But initially skeptical Micah decides he'll "take care of it" himself, setting up a nocturnal bedroom surveillance camera (the scariest scenes), bringing a Ouija board home, etc. These are very bad ideas. While leads' bickering grows tiresome, "Paranormal" succeeds in staying unnervingly "real" even once nifty, modest FX render the invisible visible.
---- OSCAR FYC: Best Picture - "Up" Best Actor - Michael Stuhlbarg, "A Serious Man" Best Actress - Saoirse Ronan, "Lovely Bones" Best Supporting Actor - Christoph Waltz, "Basterds" Best Original Screenplay - "Up"
Posts: 1924 | Location: Right behind you. | Registered: December 07, 2007
Bottom Line: Effective jolts await in this ultra-low-budget haunted-house tale, but audiences will need extraordinary patience. Hoping to catch lightning in a bottle (or the ghost in the machine), Paramount Pictures has been treading carefully with its release of "Paranormal Activity," a pickup from Slamdance 2008 whose ridiculously low budget of $15,000 and cinema-verite approach to the supernatural evoke that ultimate sleeper success, "The Blair Witch Project." The movie's utter lack of production value has mandated an unconventional word-of-mouth strategy that incorporates midnight debut screenings in 13 college towns and a website competition to determine which parts of the country will get it next.
It's a smart move, since much of "Paranormal" is as exciting as the outtakes from a particularly dull episode of "Big Brother." Careful handling is a must for the picture to capitalize on its strength -- an incremental sense of dread that leads to some genuine jolts in the final half-hour. Those shocks should generate an avid cult following, but writer-director Oren Peli's housebound horror tale is unlikely to cast a massive boxoffice spell like the "Blair Witch" phenomenon.
The setup is as elemental as can be. Young middle-class San Diego couple Micah (Micah Sloat) and Katie (Katie Featherston) are being spooked by strange noises in their new home. Eager for answers, Micah decides to set up night-vision camera equipment in their bedroom, in addition to his own roving camcorder. (As in "Blair Witch," all the action is purportedly found footage from this amateur shoot.)
We soon learn that Katie has a history of otherworldly encounters, dating to a tragic incident from her childhood. The couple calls in an ineffectual psychic, and Micah tempts the spirit world with an Ouija board, but their after-dark visitations just get louder and more terrifying, culminating in one particularly momentous night.
The most effective sequences stem from the time-coded bedroom surveillance footage (always speeded up to the moments when doors open by themselves and shadows climb the walls). The banality of the couple's day-to-day existence when they're not hearing unwelcome guests enhances the sense of realism, but it can be awfully trying for viewers who just want to get to the good stuff already.
Sloat and Featherston have a laid-back naturalism that serves the premise well. Sloat is just smug enough that we kind of welcome the hell that awaits him.
"Paranormal" ultimately does deliver in a way that "Blair Witch" never did, but its achingly slow buildup is a test not just of an audience's patience but the power of hype surrounding the latest alternative scary movie.
Opens: Friday, Sept. 25 (Paramount Pictures) Production: Blumhouse Prods. Cast: Micah Sloat, Katie Featherston, Mark Fredrichs, Amber Armstrong, Ashley Palmer, Tim Piper, Randy McDowell Director,screenwriter, director of photography, editor: Oren Peli Producers: Oren Peli, Jason Blum Executive producer: Steven Schneider Rated R, 96 minutes
---- OSCAR FYC: Best Picture - "Up" Best Actor - Michael Stuhlbarg, "A Serious Man" Best Actress - Saoirse Ronan, "Lovely Bones" Best Supporting Actor - Christoph Waltz, "Basterds" Best Original Screenplay - "Up"
Posts: 1924 | Location: Right behind you. | Registered: December 07, 2007
Exactly 10 years ago, The Blair Witch Project divided audiences every bit as much as it unsettled them. So when I say that Oren Peli's Paranormal Activity, a haunted-house thriller shot for $11,000, was made very much in the peekaboo-vérité spirit of Blair Witch — and that, in fact, it may be an even scarier film — you could find that frightening in one of two ways. You might say, ''Cool, I've got to see that,'' or you may think, ''No, I won't get fooled again!'' What I can tell the Blair Witch skeptics is that in that movie, you never really did get to see very much, but in Paranormal Activity you do, you honestly do — though in a slow-build way that's freaky and terrifying.
The entire film takes place in the two-story San Diego home of sweet but spiky Katie (Katie Featherston), who claims to be plagued by demons, and Micah (Micah Sloat), her obnoxious boyfriend, who totes around a video camera to record evidence that those spirits are real. The two joke and bicker, but at night we see them asleep, the camera at a fixed angle in their dankly lit bedroom. The shot keeps skipping ahead, hour by time-coded hour, until stuff starts to...spook. With its this-is-really-happening vibe, Paranormal Activity scrapes away 30 years of encrusted nightmare clichés. The fear is real, all right, because the fear is really in you. A–
Posts: 27161 | Location: Phoenix, AZ | Registered: February 02, 2003
A *** out of **** from Peter Travers in ROLLING STONE...
With a $15,000 budget too puny to empty a petty-cash drawer, the no-frills Paranormal Activity comes packed with thrills. Oren Peli's movie from nowhere owes much to The Blair Witch Project, and, OK, suffers by comparison. But make no mistake, this potent frightfest will fry your nerves and creep you out big time without spending a dime on obvious special effects.
The plot needs three sentences. Katie (Katie Featherston) and boyfriend Micah (Micah Sloat) are freaked out by noises in their San Diego home. To catch what's out there, he sets up a night vision video camera while they sleep. We watch the found footage.
That's it. Over a period of about three weeks in the film, the tension builds and builds and builds until the dread ties your stomach in knots. No need to say more. If ghost stories have your number, this one will get you good.
Last weekend, Paramount opened the film with midnight screenings in 13 college towns, and asked audiences outside the selected zones to go on the movie's website and vote if they wanted the movie at their local multiplex. More than 200,000 did just that, so Paranormal Activity will open in 20 more cities this weekend. And many more cities after that if the pace continues. It's a new kind of marketing campaign and perfect for a movie that proves you don't need stars and computer mashups to make audiences shriek at things that go bump in the night.
Posts: 27161 | Location: Phoenix, AZ | Registered: February 02, 2003
Ah, Pacinofan! You snagged the last two Top Critics reviews that have been posted on Rotten Tomatoes. Quick on the draw, my friend.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: Dr. McPhearson,
---- OSCAR FYC: Best Picture - "Up" Best Actor - Michael Stuhlbarg, "A Serious Man" Best Actress - Saoirse Ronan, "Lovely Bones" Best Supporting Actor - Christoph Waltz, "Basterds" Best Original Screenplay - "Up"
Posts: 1924 | Location: Right behind you. | Registered: December 07, 2007
Originally posted by Troy: I really want to see this film. It is great to see a horror film actually getting good reviews.
I agree with the Hollywood Reporter review, in the sense that the first twenty minutes really does take its time, and you almost wish the Night scenes would last a little longer. But in the final ten to fifteen minutes, the entire audience was bristling by the time the Day scenes ended and the Night scenes began. The last scene or two geniunely made me jump, something I never do during horror films.
The mild genius of this film comes from the fact that the director never shows too much. He builds ever-so slowly. Much in the way that Jaws didn't show Bruce the Shark right away, so too is the apparition's form only gradually revealed to us.
---- OSCAR FYC: Best Picture - "Up" Best Actor - Michael Stuhlbarg, "A Serious Man" Best Actress - Saoirse Ronan, "Lovely Bones" Best Supporting Actor - Christoph Waltz, "Basterds" Best Original Screenplay - "Up"
Posts: 1924 | Location: Right behind you. | Registered: December 07, 2007
Sorry. I should have waited to see if you were going to post everything. I was already on the EW site looking something up and decided to do it. Also remembered the last time I saw looking up reviews at ROLLING STONE I saw a review for it.
This movie sounds very interesting and even if I do not see it in the theatre I will see it as soon as it is on DVD.
Posts: 27161 | Location: Phoenix, AZ | Registered: February 02, 2003
Originally posted by pacinofan: Sorry. I should have waited to see if you were going to post everything. I was already on the EW site looking something up and decided to do it. Also remembered the last time I saw looking up reviews at ROLLING STONE I saw a review for it.
This movie sounds very interesting and even if I do not see it in the theatre I will see it as soon as it is on DVD.
You have to watch the film in the complete dark to get the full effect. If you do wait until DVD, make sure to click off ALL the lights. Unfortunately, after the movie's over, you won't want to get out from under the blankets to flip the lights back on.
Again, the scares are the result of practical FX. But that is why it works so darn well, I think.
---- OSCAR FYC: Best Picture - "Up" Best Actor - Michael Stuhlbarg, "A Serious Man" Best Actress - Saoirse Ronan, "Lovely Bones" Best Supporting Actor - Christoph Waltz, "Basterds" Best Original Screenplay - "Up"
Posts: 1924 | Location: Right behind you. | Registered: December 07, 2007
It's curious this is connecting with a public right now. Sundance has announced that they are adding a section of microbudget films this January to include films like this (which clearly could have been in their midnight program before).
Whether micro-budget ever works with the public beyond horror remains to be seen. But this film, like Blair Witch before, will give a lot of young filmmakers ideas.
Originally posted by seanflynn: It's curious this is connecting with a public right now. Sundance has announced that they are adding a section of microbudget films this January to include films like this (which clearly could have been in their midnight program before).
Whether micro-budget ever works with the public beyond horror remains to be seen. But this film, like Blair Witch before, will give a lot of young filmmakers ideas.
It's actually funny that you should mention that, Sean. While comedies like Little Miss Sunshine have been considered "independent," and gone on to box office success and award ceremonies, I have yet to see (or hear of one) that was labeled "micro-budget." However, I would lay a hefty bet down on the idea that soon enough, film students in particular will lead the way for low-budget laugh-a-thons to be produced cheap; it will just take the right screenplay, one that packs a punch but demands very little in terms of shooting locations and production design, to make something like that happen, though.
A micro-budget drama that works? Don't know yet. But I suppose that, if the premise is compelling enough, and the cast doesn't require payment (acting for free isn't unheard of), it might be in the near future.
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---- OSCAR FYC: Best Picture - "Up" Best Actor - Michael Stuhlbarg, "A Serious Man" Best Actress - Saoirse Ronan, "Lovely Bones" Best Supporting Actor - Christoph Waltz, "Basterds" Best Original Screenplay - "Up"
Posts: 1924 | Location: Right behind you. | Registered: December 07, 2007
See, when I hear this one being compared to 'The Blair Witch Project,' it makes me not want to see it.
Granted...I saw 'TBWP' half-smashed after going out for beers with my brother and went with two college friends of mine who were stoned and kept giggling during the movie, but I really did NOT enjoy it.
Originally posted by OnMyBirthday: See, when I hear this one being compared to 'The Blair Witch Project,' it makes me not want to see it.
Granted...I saw 'TBWP' half-smashed after going out for beers with my brother and went with two college friends of mine who were stoned and kept giggling during the movie, but I really did NOT enjoy it.
That said...I'm intrigued by this.
To give you some idea, the comparisons between the films end with the "found footage" concept. Beyond that, the two films are incomparable to me, particularly since I wasn't scared in the least by "Blair Witch."
---- OSCAR FYC: Best Picture - "Up" Best Actor - Michael Stuhlbarg, "A Serious Man" Best Actress - Saoirse Ronan, "Lovely Bones" Best Supporting Actor - Christoph Waltz, "Basterds" Best Original Screenplay - "Up"
Posts: 1924 | Location: Right behind you. | Registered: December 07, 2007
The positive buzz about this micro-budget spectral thriller started building at a Park City, Utah, film festival, word of mouth spread quickly via the Internet, early nationwide college-town screenings sparked even more interest, and a slowly expanding theatrical release fed the flames.
It's the model that made "The Blair Witch Project" a cultural phenomenon and box-office blockbuster exactly a decade ago, and it's a carefully crafted plan that Paramount Pictures is following nearly to the letter with “Paranormal Activity.”
While there are minor differences between the releases -- "Blair Witch" premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, "Paranormal Activity" played at the smaller Slamdance Film Festival -- the similarities are striking. What's also noticeable is how well both films performed in the initial weeks of their theatrical premieres.
Opening in July 1999, "Blair Witch" initially showed in 27 theaters, with a staggering per-screen average of $56,000. Playing in only midnight shows last weekend (or about a fifth of the normal showings in a typical weekend) in 33 theaters, "Paranormal Activity" sold about $16,000 of tickets in each venue (well more than a fifth of the "Blair Witch" grosses) with hardly any paid advertising to drive traffic.
While it's far too early -- there's only $851,000 in sales so far -- to predict how well "Paranormal Activity" will ultimately perform, Paramount executives and any number of exhibitors are starting to believe the little $15,000 scare story about a nocturnal visitor is poised for greatness. For weeks, theater owners have been calling the studio asking to play the film. "That's a call we never get," says Rob Moore, Paramount's vice chairman.
"Paranormal Activity" this weekend expands to 46 markets and more than 170 theaters playing the film throughout the day and evening. Although the film still hasn't been reviewed by many leading news organizations, the early notices have been about as stellar as audience recommendations spread through Twitter, Facebook, Yahoo and genre fanboy sites. Now Paramount is using a website largely designed to bring rock bands to out-of-the way towns to drum up interest in booking the film.
"Blair Witch," which grossed $248.6 million in worldwide box office, was the film that transformed the Internet into a movie-marketing machine. In an era where many people still employed dial-up connections, Artisan Entertainment launched a low-tech "Blair Witch" website to create what felt like an authentic groundswell of audience interest, while also perpetuating the myth that the film represented found footage from some real-life event.
"It felt natural and viral," says John Hegeman, who was Artisan's marketing head at the time and now holds a similar position at New Regency. "It was the only place you could go to find out things about the film. And because the Internet was new to so many consumers, there was a mystical element."
High-speed Web connections are ubiquitous these days, so Paramount looked for a new way to create a similar sense of mystery and generate pent-up demand for "Paranormal Activity." It found the perfect place -- in movie theaters, and the lines snaking into them.
By intentionally booking the film into just a few theaters and then limiting the showings to midnight, Paramount turned "Paranormal Activity" into a sometimes impossible ticket to get.
Hundreds of would-be moviegoers were turned away across the nation, and the lines into theaters (some "Paranormal Activity" audience members would start queuing up five hours before showtimes) became walking advertisements for the movie.
"In this era of the 10,000-print release, the idea that there's a movie out there that you can't get into -- that created even more interest," says Moore. "It's that sense of discovery -- that you know something somebody else doesn't. There's a sense that you are part of the discovery."
Maurice Peel, a manager at Santa Cruz's Nickelodeon & Del Mar Theatres, says patrons drove from as far away as Santa Barbara and Sacramento to see the movie in his 500-seat auditorium last weekend, where every show sold out hours before the curtain. "It's an event unto itself," Peel says. "And I do think it has a chance of stretching beyond its limits. The intrigue factor is so big right now. People are saying, 'What is this thing? Can I see it? What is it?' "
Eric Brembeck, the owner of the Studio 35 Cinema & Drafthouse in Columbus, Ohio, says he hasn't seen audiences as feverish to see a movie since "The Dark Knight," the second-highest-grossing release in Hollywood history. Last weekend, Brembeck says, "Paranormal Activity" fans drove from Pittsburgh and Indianapolis -- "and that's about four or five hours away." While there were no empty seats in any of Brembeck's weekend midnight shows, sales dipped slightly on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.
In the coming weeks, ahead of its tentatively planned broader national release on Oct. 23, Paramount will start to buy more traditional advertising -- in television, on radio and in print. For the most part, though, Paramount will let the film's patrons sell the movie for them, and try to keep the studio and the filmmakers in the shadows.
"Blair Witch" alumnus Hegeman thinks it might work. "They are doing a really good job," Hegeman says, "in letting the power of the audience push the film."
Posts: 27161 | Location: Phoenix, AZ | Registered: February 02, 2003
A *** out of **** review from Lou Lumenick in the NEW YORK POST...
Less is usually more when it comes to scary movies.
"Paranormal Activity," re portedly made for a pit tance of $11,000, delivers more shocks and shudders than most flicks costing 1,000 times that.
Like legendary producer Val Lewton in the '40s, writer-director Oren Peli, who shot "Paranormal" in seven days in his own home, understands that what's most frightening is what you don't see -- but which is merely suggested.
There's nothing but the briefest glimpse of blood or violence here -- and nothing but the crudest (but highly effective) visual and sound effects. Yet I felt hairs standing up on the back of my neck as the film slowly built to a series of shocks that had a preview audience screaming and laughing nervously.
Employing the same sort of supposedly found camcorder footage (though less shaky) as "The Blair Witch Project" and "Cloverfield," the film depicts a tense three-week period in late 2006.
Micah (Micah Sloat), an entitled day trader, has just bought the camera in an attempt to record things going bump in the night at the two-story tract house in San Diego that he has recently moved into with his girlfriend Katie (Katie Featherston).
Katie, who has had problems with paranormal events in the past, brings in an expert, who warns the couple not to anger the ghost or demon that's taken up residence in their home.
Micah, though, thinks it would be fun to capture the phenomena on tape. It's not giving anything away to say this is a bad idea. Defying Katie and bringing in a Ouija board is probably an even worse idea.
Doors open suddenly, lights flicker on and off in the middle of the night, we hear footsteps. Is that a shadow? And what exactly is going on in their bed while they're sleeping? It's been a long time since I saw an audience react so viscerally to a film. There were literally gasps when a character walked off into darkness.
On the downside, there are long dull stretches, especially in the beginning. The film, which has no music except a brief burst from a computer, would be even more effective if it were 15 minutes shorter.
Even so, "Paranormal Activity" creates a highly effective mood and a pervasive sense of dread. The film's greatest assets are strong performances by what's basically a two-person cast. Sloat is effectively obnoxious as Micah, with Featherston even better as the increasingly high-strung Katie.
I won't say anything about the ending except to say it's much scarier than "The Blair Witch Project" -- and report that a substantial portion of the audience spent five minutes staring at a blank screen at the end, waiting to see if it was really over.
"Paranormal Activity" may indeed be the phenomenon for which Paramount is hoping.
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Posts: 27161 | Location: Phoenix, AZ | Registered: February 02, 2003
"Paranormal Activity" is an ingenious little horror film, so well made it's truly scary, that arrives claiming it's the real thing. Without any form of conventional opening or closing credits, it begins by thanking "the families of Micah Sloat and Katie Featherston" and closes with one of those "current whereabouts unknown" title cards and a screen of copyright notices. This was apparently a film made without a director, a writer, a producer, grips, makeup, sound, catering or a honey wagon.
All of the footage is presented as if it had been discovered after the fact. The story device is that Micah shot it himself. There isn't a single shot that violates that presumption, although a few seem technically impossible without other hands on the camera. Those are hard to notice.
Katie is a graduate student of English. Micah is a day trader. They've been together three years, and have now moved into a house in San Diego that doesn't seem much lived in. It's well enough furnished, but everything looks new and there's no clutter. Micah greets Katie out front one day by filming her on his new video camera, which she observes looks bigger than his other one.
They've been bothered by indications of some sort of paranormal activity in an upstairs bedroom. Micah's bright idea is to film in the house, leaving the camera running as a silent sentinel while they sleep. Like any man with a new toy, he becomes obsessed with this notion -- the whole point, for him, isn't Katie's fear but his film. After one big scare, she asks him incredulously, did you actually go back to pick up your camera?
One benefit of the story device is that for long periods of time the camera is ostensibly left on with no one running it. It's on a tripod at the end of their bed while they sleep, and we see events while their eyes are closed. Some of these events and very minor, and I won't describe any of them. The fact that they happen at all is the whole point. That they seem to happen by themselves, witnessed by a static camera, makes them eerie, especially since there are some shots that seem impossible without special effects, and there's no visible evidence of f/x, looking as closely as we can.
He is frequently off camera. She is on cam for almost every shot, and of Katie Featherston's performance it's enough to say it is flawless for the purposes of this film. We're not talking Meryl Streep here, we're talking about a young woman who looks and talks absolutely like she might be an ordinary college student who has just moved in with her boyfriend. There's not a second of "acting."
Micah behaves, shall I say, just like a man. You know, the kind who will never stop and ask directions. Katie has been bothered by some sort of paranormal presence since she was a child, and now she's seriously disturbed, and Micah's response isn't sympathy but a determination to get it all down on film.
They do call in a "psychic expert" (Mark Fredrichs) but he's no help. He specializes in ghosts, he explains, and he knows by walking in the door that what's haunting them isn't a ghost but some sort of demonic presence. He recommends a demonologist, but alas this man is "away for a few days." That's the plot's most unrealistic detail. Having spent some time in my credulous days hanging about the Bodhi Tree bookstore in L.A., I would suggest that California is a state with more practicing demonologists than published poets.
I learn from IMDb that "Paranormal Activity" does indeed have a writer-director, Oren Peli, and other technical credits. But like "The Blair Witch Project," with which it's routinely compared, it goes to great lengths to seem like a film found after the event. It works. It illustrates one of my favorite points, that silence and waiting can be more entertaining than frantic fast-cutting and berserk f/x. For extended periods here, nothing at all is happening, and believe me, you won't be bored.
Posts: 27161 | Location: Phoenix, AZ | Registered: February 02, 2003
