#8: Paranormal Activity (2007)
This wasn't originally planned to be one of the Random Movies of Damnation, but I figured people would probably be wondering what all of the hoopla was about. The movie was made two years ago and has done the film festival rounds, but took some time to attract a distributor. When I saw the preview, I said, "Oh, it's Blair Witch Project in a house." ... and I was right. That's exactly what it is. Luckily, these would-be film auteurs brought a tripod, so it won't make you motion sick like Blair Witch.
For the ill-informed, this is what it is: a couple moves in together and discovers that they're being harassed by some pissed-off supernatural entity. And they film it.
I should really stop comparing it to other movies and rate it based on its own value. It's not like I take every black and white movie and say, "well, it's just not Citizen Kane." That's not to say that Blair Witch is Citizen Kane in any sense, and Paranormal Activity is far superior in my opinion. The build-up is slow but steady; I typically don't mind a lot of exposition in my movies as long as there is payoff, but by 30 minutes in I was getting a little bored. Then... something happens. It's nothing spectacular, nothing you couldn't recreate effortlessly with your own camera, but by this time you've gotten so used to the mundane lives of the main characters that your reaction is on par with theirs. It almost hypnotizes you into believing this is really happening, which is no small feat in our desensitized world of media overload. The movie progresses slowly on as the supernatural entity ups the ante night by night. You could literally hear every girl in the audience(as well as Matt Brigman) take a deep breath and hug themselves every time the couple onscreen turned out the lights to go to sleep. Never before have I heard so much nervous laughter in a theatre. It was an entirely new experience.
Aside from the paranormal goings on, the movie's predictable and boring (just like real life!) The girl is a student who never seems to need to study or go to class, and the guy is described as a "day trader," a job which apparently consists of living in a huge house and never ever working. Naturally the phenomenon takes a toll on their relationship and they begin to bicker, just as in Blair Witch and Open Water (or as I like to call it, "Mia, are you asleep? Do we have to watch this?") As opposed to those films, though, this one does seem to have something approximating a storyline, which makes it far more entertaining yet less believable.
I didn't like the trailer at first; it had the feeling of Viral Marketing Lite. I don't care how many people screamed at the test screening – they tried this angle for Hostel and that movie was a trite piece of shit. They really have to do this, though, because there aren't enough exciting or "jump" moments in the complete film to fill an entire trailer.
There was also the "Demand It" aspect of the marketing campaign. They made it sound like the only way to get the movie playing in your area was to go online and sign a petition. I did so, only to have my inbox flooded with updates about various music events coming to Chattanooga. After three attempts I finally got that shit to stop coming to my inbox, then discovered the next day that it was already playing here anyway. A web search says that it got a wide release on October 16, 2009, so the whole "Demand It" thing was a scam, a plot to rally the people of the country together, proclaiming, "just because we don't live in LA or NYC doesn't mean we don't want movies!"
The movie was reportedly made for $15,000, which I must assume went entirely into marketing. As of this writing, it has the highest gross-to-budget ratio of all time, making 2500 times as much as it cost to make. And just today, a sequel has been greenlit. Expect failure.
That said, it's a shiver-inducing film and probably the best thing at theatres right now, so you should see it. As a fan of actual paranormal phenomenon, I was impressed.
Z-Man sez: 7/10
... and I had a hell of a time trying to get to sleep afterward.
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