Much has been made of Paranormal Activity’s similarity to The Blair Witch Project, what with the low-budget, (mostly) hand-held look. Even the marketing is comparable, letting word-of-mouth and a unique, audience-assisted distribution technique driving interest. Clearly, it’s worked. The film grossed $9.1 million in its first week showing in less than 200 theaters. As it’s expanded, the numbers have shot up to the top of the box office. I finally got around to seeing it and with all the good I’ve been hearing about it, my expectations were pretty high.
The first thing I noticed was that, aside from aesthetic, Paranormal Activity owes a lot more to the 1981 demon haunting story starring Barbara Hershey than it did to Blair Witch (I highly recommend checking out The Entity, but watch it with a group. I’ll tantalize you with a four-word description: heavy metal demon rape). Also, since I saw Drag Me to Hell earlier this year, I couldn’t shake the similarities even though Paranormal Activity was made earlier. It’s not fair, but I couldn’t help it. Fortunately, the films have completely different approaches to similar material, so it didn’t feel I’d already seen the movie this year.
Now, maybe I watch too many horror movies (and I probably do), but by the time stuff really started to happen in Paranormal Activity, I was completely bored and restless. I appreciate that the film took its time building up the suspense and the different emotional states the characters went through, but I simply didn’t care for the characters. I blame part of this on myself. I get intensely uncomfortable watching those cutesy moments of relationships depicted. The times where people act silly and playful with each other but they are the only ones who would find what they are doing amusing. I know I do it, too, but I don’t want anyone to have to see it. This is how the characters are introduced to the audience, though, so instead of caring for them, I disconnected.
My other issue that I have to cop to is that I don’t like watching irrational fighting. Sure, you could say all fighting is irrational, but what I mean is I don’t like watching a problem that can easily be solved become a huge deal because one party is being stubborn. In the case of Paranormal Activity, the girlfriend (Katie) repeatedly asks her boyfriend (Micah) to turn the camera and increasingly gets upset. Of course, if the boyfriend stops filming, then there is not movie, so he has to continue. I’m certain most people will overlook this, and probably should, but it really bugs me. The genre of the horror mockumentary is filled with contrived reasons to continue filming beyond the point that is reasonably acceptable. Generally, it’s dealt with by having a character say, “Film everything!” Here, it’s done to seemingly antagonize a freaked out girlfriend for no reason (same deal with the Ouiji board. Again, all of this fighting and stupidity takes me out of the intended experience of the movie.Since Paranormal Activity is deliberate, and I’m essentially alienated from the film, there’s a lot of down time in which to grow restless. The mystery is enough to drive the story initially, though. It’s creepy to see the minor things that start out the incident, but again, it’s always the same set piece slightly tweaked each time, so even that got a little dull. The film telegraphs every moment of potential scares by having a low drone start just before something happens. Sure, it may build suspense, but it doesn’t really get under your skin like a subtler approach would.
Quick aside: we’re meant to believe that the police gave this footage to the filmmaker to edit together. For all intents and purposes, the events of the film are real. Yet, the filmmaker decided to add this score to every paranormal event. How exploitative is that? Instead of presenting things as they happened, the director is saying, “Hey… check THIS out.” End aside.
It’s not that Paranormal Activity is bad. Hell, the only other people at my screening applauded after it ended. And I don’t think my expectations had anything to do with my disappointment. In the end, it probably is that I’ve seen too many horror movies. I’ve seen the material before and I’ve seen it done much better. If you want to see a horror mockumentary that really gets under your skin, be sure to catch Lake Mungo when it eventually gets released. In terms of tone, the films are quite similar, but the suspense is done very differently.
I dug it. I saw it last night (waited to read your review until I had seen it) and I thought it did a pretty good job creating an environment of scare, which is hard to do to me...I honestly cannot stay awake through The Exorcist. Each time I've attempted to watch that movie I fall asleep around the time when she comes down the stairs upside down.
ReplyDeleteNot that this film is perfect, it's far from it, but I was still entertained the entire time. I thought the scares were alright, and that the droning was a good addition. In the theatre I saw the film in, no one quite knew what do do after the movie. The droning continued and most of the audience started laughing, which is odd.
I don't know that I'll ever feel the desire to watch this film again, but I'm happy for it's success for one reason and unhappy for another. This movie is a very good example of what is wrong with movies today. It's a good classic-esque film. It introduces the characters, and shows you their "normal" world and then takes you on an adventure through the abnormal with them. It doesn't rely on gore or spectacle to tell the story. It also does a fairly good job of telling the story through economy. Hopefully Hollywood will see this movies success and then give filmmakers more freedom to tell their stories. I also see this movie as being another of the precursors to low budget movies that just aren't good, which Hollywood will be all about for the next couple of months/years. The $11,000 budget isn't really a budget number. That may have been how much they shot the film for, and the amount of money they would be out of if it hadn't done anything, but it's not right do base budgets on numbers that don't include paying your cast/crew (even if they do work for free/backend money). I'm happy that they created something for so little initial investment, and that what I would call a good film is getting some notoriety/screenplay and a following. Let's just hope that it doesn't spurn a huge no-budget film rush, and that it prompts Hollywood to give the ability to tell a good story the way the filmmaker wants to tell it.