Cheap and cheerful, frighteningly overhyped, but, on the whole, not the worst horror film in the world.
A young couple, Micah and Katie, move into a new house where suspicious noises occur at night. Micah buys a video camera to film the poltergeist.
All discussions about “Paranormal Activity” begin with the information that the debut director Oren Peli – a video game designer who emigrated to the USA from Israel – made it in ten days for $15,000. The filming location was the director’s own house. The actors who played the main roles received $500 each (and they improvised their dialogues themselves: Peli did not provide them with a script).
It seemed that the film had no chance of reaching the audience: when Paramount studios watched the film, they perceived it as something like a script application, decided to make a remake for normal money, and release the original version in additional materials on DVD. But then they remembered the success of “The Blair Witch Project” and decided not to bother, but to distribute everything as is. With his budget, Peli can afford exactly two special effects: slam the door loudly (this happens an hour after the start) and unexpectedly throw something heavy at the camera (this is the finale). Predicting that these will be the most spectacular scenes in the film is possible from the trailer.
Simplicity and Borrowing
In addition to simplicity, there is also theft: it is obvious that Peli was not just inspired by “The Blair Witch Project”, but simply borrowed the main technique from it – the entire film is allegedly assembled from video recordings made by real people, and initially there was an idea to sell it as a documentary. Moreover, Peli does not use the technique virtuously at all. For example, the authors of “Cloverfield”, who at one time also drew inspiration from “The Blair Witch…”, at least guessed to make the camera movements crazy and chaotic, but Peli’s is all very neatly shot and glued together, which rarely happens in a real home video. And yet, the box office in America alone exceeded 100 million. Steven Spielberg almost had a heart attack from the film (during the viewing, the door to his bedroom slammed shut and would not open, and the arriving locksmith found the famous director in hysterics).
Overhyped Horror
Reviewers rave that this is almost the scariest film in history and that it is made i-n-c-r-e-d-i-b-l-y. Peli is already considered one of the most promising Hollywood directors. He said in an interview that since childhood he has had an almost clinical phobia: he is mortally afraid of demons. Perhaps this sincere timidity, this magical consciousness, this absolutely genuine belief in devils, in the fact that demons walk around houses when we sleep, and chairs can turn into giraffes when we are not looking at them, make “Paranormal Activity” a successful film after all. The actors for $500 a piece practically do not act at all – they just somehow organically exist in front of the camera, like dogs, and you can see in their eyes that they are really afraid of the dark and suddenly slamming doors. For such a film, this is much more important than Meryl Streep’s skills.
Potential Impact
In historical perspective, “Paranormal Activity” may turn out to be a rather harmful film: this way all studios will rush to shoot for 15,000 what they used to spend tens of millions on. And for sure these studios will face an influx of self-made directors who decided to make a blockbuster at the price of the video camera on which it was filmed. On the other hand, why not. Most people are very tickled by the primitive confidence lurking in the depths of their souls that a predator can jump on them from the dark. You can mock Peli’s poverty, but still, the door, if slammed skillfully, can become a source of the most acute and strong audience sensations.