Horror fans, the wait is now officially over — or it could be soon, depending on where you live. On Sept. 25, Paramount Pictures will finally release Paranormal Activity, the super low-budget indie that fright flick fanatics have been foaming at the mouth to see since its storied debut at the January 2008 Slamdance fest. On Sept. 24, the movie — about a young San Diego couple terrorized by things that go bump in the night — will screen at midnight at the Alamo Draft House in Austin, Tex. as part of über-geek Harry Knowles’ Fantastic Fest. Prepare to be freaked out. At a recent screening in Toronto, a packed audience gasped and screamed as they watched actors Micah Sloat and Katie Featherston become increasingly unhinged in the presence of a (potential) demon. Think Blair Witch, but in a cozy suburban house. (The latest trailer embedded here.)
The Fantastic Fest is just the beginning. Paramount will be holding additional midnight screenings on Sept. 24 in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, Atlanta, and Seattle, and the following day kicks off a series of midnight sneak peeks in 13 cities across the country. If you’re not lucky enough to live in one of the chosen towns, you can try to bring the scares directly to you via Demand It, an online grassroots device that works like this: If enough people from the same (or nearby) zip code make themselves heard (you know, scream), the studio will send Paranormal Activity to their local Cineplex. “We felt the movie was so unique that it needed a unique platform,” says Amy Powell, Senior VP of Interactive Marketing at Paramount. “For the first time ever, fans will dictate where the movie rolls out.”
In an effort to get the word out, Paramount has also launched Paranormal Activity Twitter and Facebook pages, and come Sept. 25, it will equip theaters with computer stations for fans to log in and share their reactions. “All the anxiety that the audience experiences while watching the movie — we thought that might make them feel compelled to tell others what they thought,” says Powell.
If only Twitter could register blood-curdling screams.
There are several aspects to this story that may interest religious blogs.
(i) Creativity trumps the Studios: Director Oren Peli studied animation and graphics but never film. So he shot his ghost story from the first-person subjective point-of-view. This is the same approach taken by “The Blair Witch Project” and “Cloverfield”. The pre-release buzz is that “Activity” trumps both.“Paranormal Activity” purports to be the digital footage taken by young couple experiencing a haunting. Dreamworks intended to re-shoot the entire film. But following a split from Paramount that project was put on hold. After a two year wait, fan’s of the original film put significant pressure on Dreamworks to release “Activity” unaltered. The studio decided that with a few minor edits (and possibly some work on the sound) they had a viable product for mass release. Viewers will now see “Paranormal Activity” as the director intended.
(ii) Who said Ghosts were dead? Contrast “Activity” with the Spanish horror film “Rec” which was remade in the US as “Quarantine”. “Rec” purports to be footage of a reporters encounter with demonic forces. Substantial changes were made to the plot for the US remake – specifically all mention of the supernatural was removed. Whereas the protagonists in “Rec” were trapped in an apartment block with supernaturally possessed malefactors, the reporter in “Quarantine” is trapped with victims of a rabies-type virus.
“Paranormal Activity” is unabashedly supernatural. This is a film about a demonic haunting, pure and simple. The few snippets of the story revealed on trailers are reminiscent of an MR James ghost story. An arrogant overeducated youth plays with the demonic. An invisible figure moves doors, leaves trails, and can be seen moving under bed covers (this could have been taken directly from “Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come to You”).
Hollywood has tended to rely on ironic parody (“Scream”) or body horror (“Hostel”) to deliver shocks rather than chills. The supernatural is required for the latter. A sociopath in a hockey mask doesn’t quite unsettle as effectively as the unseen. Remakes of Japanese horror (“The Ring”, “The Grudge”,“Dark Water”) have been profitable, but disappointing. Americans don’t share Japanese superstitions. Perhaps it would take an Israeli émigré working outside the studio system to produce an American Ghost story. The result has been compared to “The Exorcist.”
(iii) That leaves me with egg on my face. I’ve been telling my students for several years that this sort of film just wouldn’t work anymore. “The Exorcist” panicked my parent’s generation. If any of my students have bothered to watch it they have found it dull, or mildly amusing. Regurgitating film critic and philosopher Thomas Hibbs, I’ve explained that we live in an age of “cheerful nihilism”. People don’t believe in evil anymore (so the argument goes) and this allows them to laugh at the monstrous. “Exorcist” makes a head spin. “Kill Bill” fries a head for the laughs. “The Exorcist” lost its ability to shock as audiences developed stronger stomachs. It lost its ability to unsettle as audiences lost their belief in absolute Good and absolute Evil.
Or so I thought. “Paranormal Activity” delivers the goods, can only deliver the goods if audiences can conceive of a malevolent, supernatural entity hunting and destroying a young loving couple. That’s as close to an absolute evil as it gets. It’s true that audiences have to suspend disbelief, but there are set limits. As a simple example, we won’t admit storylines with too many coincidences. If “Activity” pulls in a large audience share here and across the Atlantic then maybe we’re not as nihilistic as I thought.
(iv) At the very least, if we are nihilistic, we may not be as cheerful about it as I thought. MR James said that the purpose of a good ghost story was to “chill the blood, pleasurably”. And “Activity” is said to meet that criteria. Audiences enjoy the chill. Is there something reassuring in the thought that there are undiscovered forces that cannot be trapped, contained and studied by technology? That’s a simple premise in many good ghost tales from “Frankenstein” onwards. We need villains we can almost believe in if we are to enjoy a tale. It would be revealing if slashers aren’t enough. If we want something more wild and mysterious.
Put it this way – Different eras have different nightmares. So giants ants and radioactive dinosaurs could scare audiences in the 1950s, but not the 1980s. Serial killers take over in the 1980s, but have to be played for ironic effect in the 1990s. And so forth.
Now “Paranormal Activity” is being aimed at exactly the same target audience that PZ Myers, Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris aim at. They’re in their 20s and 30s, educated and internet savvy.
Furthermore, “Activity” plays on an interesting set of fears. The hero/victim is cynical. He acts as if there is no mystery that cannot be “googled”, and no threat that cannot be captured by streaming media. It’s this set of attitudes that puts him in danger, and creates the tension.
To create suspense, the audience must know better than the protangonists. We have to sense the threat that the characters cannot. Now there’s an interesting premise for Paramount (not Dreamworks)to sell a movie on. The audience will believe in the supernatural. They will believe enough to be terrified.(Unlike “Blair Witch” this film momentarily reveals the demonic threat onscreen – there is no “out” for the audience.)
So why is it that fear of the supernatural is resurfacing in the cinema, exactly when there is significant pressure to abandon belief in the supernatural?
It’s interesting that there is no Priest to confront the demonic – apparently just a comically ineffective psychic. Is this what audiences fear – that they’ll discover the reality of the supernatural just when they’ve banished every means of dealing with it? If comparisons to “The Exorcist” are deserved – and there’s every indication that they are – then this film will be discussed by the religious media for quite some time.
BTW
This has to be the best marketing campaign since “Psycho”!
GV
Like most of you.. I was very, very excited about RSVPing to watch this movie at a free screening in NYC on Thursday, Sept. 24th. Unfortunately, the “Paranormal Activity” RSVP website didn’t mention that the free screening were a combination of Press and Audience screening and Press came first and the audience was there to fill in seats not taken by the press. The theater had an audience capacity of 283 people and by the time I got in line, it was 4 hours before the 11:59pm screening debut. As time went by, more and more people were showing up. By 11:30 pm, there were over 1,000 people waiting in line to catch the screening and the worst thing is that the line was not moving at all so by the time midnight came around only about 40 – 50 people were able to get in. So you know what came next…. people were so angry and upset for standing in line for so many hours, some were in line for over 5 hours and didn’t get in….. a riot almost broke out… people were yelling and throwing paper and garbage at the promoter that was giving out the tickets for the screening. Very, very poor organization and management strategy.
My suggestion will be to the people that are going to RSVP for the free screening is to find out the theater capacity and if it’s a combined PRESS AND AUDIENCE SCREENING.. if it is and you see more than 50 people in line.. don’t waste your time on making the line… Remember.. you’re only there to make the line, so the organizers can take pictures of the long line and fill in seats that the press does not occupy.
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