The scariest thing about "Paranormal Activity" is how it plays on your fear of being afraid. The funniest -- and naughtiest -- thing about it is the poster -- the shot of the occupied bed in the dark room above the title "Paranormal Activity." But it turns out that what goes on in and around that bed is indeed what interests the camera. It also suggests to me something Errol Morris raised in his nonfiction film about Abu Ghraib, "Standard Operating Procedure": Would all this be happening if cameras hadn't been present to record it?
Hold that thought for a moment, and let's look at the premise: Katie (Katie Featherstone) has recently shacked up with her boyfriend of three years Micah (Micah Sloat) in a newish San Diego tract home. He's just bought a new video camera because, well, there are a few things Katie neglected to tell him about herself. Like, for instance, how something -- a demon, probably -- has been following her since she was eight years old. OK, so here's the source of the conflict in their relationship now: He thinks that's kinda neat and wants to get it on video, so he can deal with it and get rid of it and rescue his gal. He sees himself as the Man of the House, the Protector, after all. She doesn't want to mess with it, and has contacted a psychic (by phone) who tells them that whatever's following Katie is not human, that demons are not his métier (he's a ghost guy), and that they should get ahold of this other fellow (a demonologist) who may be able to help them.
Meanwhile (and here come the movie's plot rules) his advice is: 1) don't bother to leave the house, because whatever it is wants Katie (so, this is not a Haunted House movie where all they have to do is vacate the premises -- there's no escape); and 2) don't invite it to communicate or taunt it with things like ouija boards and video cameras. (Also, don't get it wet or feed it after midnight, I think.)
So, the new camera is the pretext for the whole thing. The idea of using lo-fi spooky video footage to catch indistinct glimpses of supernatural phenomena isn't an original one ("Blair Witch Project," people?), but in this case it provides a framework for a low-budget movie, shot in seven days in one house with five actors (the two leads and three minor players) on a budget of $11,000. When the camera isn't hand-held, it's mounted on a tripod (with a timecode in the lower right corner) at the foot of the bed, observing the room all night as they sleep, and that's where the eeriest stuff happens -- made creepier by having the characters watch the digital files the next day.² (And it's a letdown when we don't get to see their horrified reactions to what we've already seen.)
There are plenty of red (dead) herrings scattered about the house, too. The thing whispers, but nobody can tell if it's actually speaking any known language. Both Micah and Katie do research into demonology (though unfortunately they don't consult Hutch's recommended volume, "All of Them Witches"). There's a burnt pentangle and the anagrammatic spelling of what might be somebody's name, and maybe it has something to do with this girl they read about on the web who had something almost exactly like this happen to her. These things are merely set dressing, though -- of little consequence, because the movie's all about the bedroom camera.
The genius of "Blair Witch" was not the witch, or the movie itself, but the project -- the surrounding mythology, or Extended Universe, in "Star Wars" parlance. It was the first pop culture phenomenon to so thoroughly and successfully extend the movie experience into a virtual realm that included the web, a TV pseudo-documentary (on what was then known as the Sci-Fi Channel, but still lots of people believed it), video games and other media. Both films are presented as video documentary investigations of paranormal activity; the "innovation" of "Paranormal Activity" is that although it is obviously "edited" (with jump cuts, fast-forwarding and titles announcing dates and times) it is presented without any production credits at the start or finish to remind audiences that it's "only a movie." It begins with a white-on-black title thanking the families of Micah Sloat and Katie Featherstone and ends with a bulletin on the fates of the characters, followed by a long stretch of black leader and a subwoofer rumble until the bright blue MPAA rating [R] finally appears. (When DreamWorks bought the rights it reportedly intended to produce a star-vehicle remake and release the original only on DVD. The former would never have worked; the latter might arguably have been even more effective. Imagine letting this thing into your own house at night, the sounds and the video seeping into your own environment...)
When I saw "Paranormal Activity," the teenage girls behind me could be heard crying quietly over the deep reverberation -- used throughout the movie to signal the presence of the eponymous Paranormal Activity. (It has no other name, per se, so I'm taking the liberty of using "eponymous" instead of the more commonly used "titular.") "No, I am not OK," one of them creaked. They left sniffling. Nobody was laughing, as is usually the case after a horror movie.
Me, I was less interested in what was happening to Katie and Micah (it should be obvious from my description that there's only one place for this to go) than in what the movie itself could possibly do for the "money shot." From one angle, it's the problem all horror movies face: the build-up -- the little, ominous manifestations of menace that create an atmosphere of dread, like a shadow or movement that has no explanation -- is almost always scarier than when the threat becomes overt. That's what I mean when I say the movie is about the fear of being afraid. It's what you don't see that terrifies you. Perhaps that's why, throughout the film, I always felt the characters were safe as long as they remained within the frame. The most truly horrific stuff felt destined to take place off-camera.
For most people I know who were frightened by "The Blair Witch Project," the most terrifying thing was catching sight of Mike standing in the corner. "Paranormal Activity" goes a little further (never fear -- I'm not going to say how). And when it does -- when you can see, more or less clearly, what's going on -- that's when it becomes the least scary. For me, anyway. It's a kind of formal experiment in terror that pays off in some ways, but can't in others by the very design of the experiment's rules and restrictions. (I kept thinking of Lars von Trier's "The Five Obstructions.") For some, the cinéma vérité-style use of the video camera is a device that helps to immerse them in the action of the film; for me (in "Paranormal Activity," at least), the rigorousness of its operation as a self-conscious device, a formal "obstacle" (or, if you prefer, "gimmick") introduced by the filmmakers, kept me at some aesthetic and emotional distance from the experiment (not unlike the POV camerawork in Robert Montgomery's 1947 "Lady in the Lake," or the long takes that make Alfred Hitchcock's 1948 "Rope" appear to play out in a single unbroken shot).
There are some spine-tingly touches -- things that remind me of moments in much better and more frightening movies, including "Repulsion," "Rosemary's Baby," "The Exorcist," "The Tenant," "Poltergeist" -- all of which involve things that go bump in the night perceived by a person or persons who may be possessed and/or cracking up. "Paranormal Activity" wrings variations on just about every haunted house movie ever made (including the one below), too: objects that move of their own accord; lights, TV sets, faucets that turn on or off spontaneously; and, of course, the Thing In the Attic. (This is San Diego -- they don't have basements.) Here it's not enough to say "Don't go into the attic" because we already know it doesn't matter where they go. The thing is with Katie (as it is with Carole, and Rosemary, and Regan, and Trelkovsky and Simone Choule), and there's no getting away from it. If it isn't in the attic it will just be somewhere else, so you may as well go into the attic and see what's there. (Nevertheless, they keep saying they're going to call somebody and get some expert assistance, but they don't follow through, allowing the flimsiest excuses -- so-and-so is out of town for a few days -- to derail them. You'd think they'd be more desperate than that.)
Finally "Paranormal Activity" does, in fact, go for the money shot, and it turns out to be a fairly predictable one. (Or, at least, a fraction of a second after it happens, you think: "Yeah, that's about what I expected" -- perhaps a corollary to Stephen King's Ten-Foot Bug Rule¹). I guess I see the necessity of providing a certain amount of artificial "closure." If the movie had ended at its most frightening moment (an off-screen scream that abruptly goes silent) the audience would probably have felt cheated. As it is, the silence is followed by the sound of footsteps. Like the entrance of The Bear Jew in "Inglourious Basterds," this is supposed to create apprehension and suspense. But it's doomed to be anticlimactic, I think. You already sense, from watching the movie to this point, that it won't be able to pay off like, say, the final revelation of "Don't Look Now," or the Edvard Munch scream that ends "The Tenant," because you already know it doesn't have what it takes to come up with those kinds of images. So, it ends with a "Boo!" -- not a whimper. And that isn't quite enough to do anything but confirm what you suspected all along.
* * * *
¹ From King's "Danse Macabre" (1981), page 110:
"But I do want to say something about imagination purely as a tool in the art and science of scaring the crap out of people. The idea isn't original with me; I heard it expressed by William F. Nolan at the 1979 World Fantasy Convention. Nothing is so frightening as what's behind the closed door, Nolan said. You approach the door in the old, deserted house, and you hear something scratching at it. The audience holds its breath along with the protagonist as he/she (more often she) approaches that door. The protagonist throws it open, and there is a ten-foot-tall bug. The audience screams, but this particular scream has an oddly relieved sound to it. "A bug ten feet tall is pretty horrible," the audience thinks, "but I can deal with a ten-foot-tall bug. I was afraid it might be a hundred feet tall."
² I appreciated Micah's Monty Python quip.
(tip: New Beverly Cinema, for the trailer)
Hey Jim. Spot-on analysis.
Not sure if this one is just a well-marketed blip on the pop radar or an enduring genre oddity, but the fact that your audience experience was identical to mine -- not just crying teenage girls, but two dudes who walked out an hour in after one proclaimed that he "couldn't take it any more" -- suggests that it might genuinely be the latter. Paranormal Activity is a flawed and ultimately silly movie that gets less interesting as it's forced to play the cards that it had been holding close to the chest, and I can think of a few ways that it might have been improved within the strictures of its plot and formal conceit.
That said, the amateurishness of the acting, combined with the near-structuralist presentation -- a daytime/nighttime alternation -- does really interesting things to an audience -- possibly on purpose. The vibe at my screening consistently shifted from derisive to anxious in the space of a fade-out, and those two tones remained distinct for the whole running time. I can't remember the last time that kind of total atmospheric split happened at a screening -- of any "type" of film, not just horror -- and while I surely can't/won't base my evaluation entirely on the response of the people around me, the fact that I wasn't really scared at any point would seem less important than the fact that so many others genuinely were.
My own reservations aside, I can envision Paranormal Activity becoming one of those "endurance test" movies that older brothers cruelly inflict on their younger siblings or groups of friends screen with trepidation when one person has the house to herself; if that happens, I can think of some less worthy competitors. That it doesn't feature even one-tenth of the gore usually associated with such titles might be a topic for further discussion -- maybe even on this thread?
JE: Really good point about the gore, Adam. "PA" is obviously, deliberately going in the opposite direction of the vogue for explicity "gorer" films that are all about graphic, realistic blood and guts. It's another way the movie, especially appearing in this particular movie climate, is asking: "What scares you?"
Jim,
You and I are in near complete agreement on this film. Here's my review:
http://www.dvdtown.com/review/paranormal-activity/theatrical/7438
What I found most intriguing about the film was how it emphasized the power of the static camera/wide-angle lens vs. the hand-held cam. That one quiet set-up, granting as much authority to the open doorway as to the couple in bed, features all of the film's best elements. Once they go running around the house camera in hand - meh.
This is one of those movies, like many horror movies, that has a clever set-up that it too clever to have anywhere to go. You can't keep teasing the audience with all the off-screen thumps but once you start everyone screaming and throwing things at the camera, you lose everything that works.
I don't know what a better solution would have been other than making it a short film. But then it wouldn't have made beaucoup bucks.
I though the last scene was funny as in stupid funny but, like you, I had viewers near me who were whimpering in terror. Unlike most people, however, I saw this movie in a theater with just 20 people in it. Maybe it would have been a different experience with a larger crowd - I would have felt more guilty about laughing at the last shot.
JE: I saw it in a third-full theater, so people were sitting near one another, but not rubbing elbows unless they were in a group. I think it was probably an ideal way to see a movie like this -- just enough people to get a sense of the audience response, but not so packed that the crowd overwhelms the movie. I saw "Alien" for the first time at a pre-release press screening with about 20 people in a big auditorium and it was extra-creepy that way. No safety in numbers!
I'm not sure what else they could have done to make it scarier, either. I found the daytime scenes (where something was supposedly happening) diluted the fear, but I liked the apprehension that built when they actually saw what had been happening while they slept. You get the best of both worlds: seeing them unaware, then seeing them horrified to discover what we knew but they didn't. (Bums me that he never got her to look at the ouija board movement and spontaneous combustion -- but who knows how much stuff they may have shot that just didn't work for one reason or another.) I think you saw it the way I did, as a set of formal conceits that worked in some ways, but were doomed in others...
This is an excellent analysis, but there is an aspect to the film that you've overlooked.
Suppose that Katie herself is somehow generating these strange phenomena, say, with some kind of subconscious psychic powers that she can't control (c.f. "Stir of Echoes"). Then instead of a straight horror film, we have a horror/tragedy film involving a domestic power struggle. Micah constantly shows off his power over Katie in the film (the money, the camera in the bedroom, the ouija board...) while Katie is neurotically lashing out in a progressively more overt "anti-Micah" way.
I had a similar reaction to the film. I applaud the film for keeping it all in a real camera as opposed to faking amateur camerawork. Bravo for seeing the camera in the mirror. I just felt there were too many incremental mini-payoffs. I felt a braver choice would have been to leave the camera on the tripod in the bedroom for much longer. In fact, half-way through the film I thought that it would happen. By constantly breaking it up with morning re-affirmations of what we already saw, every small event was further diminished. Imagine how scary it would be if the audience was held captive in that bedroom the whole time, never allowed to leave along with the characters. Even in daylight, left alone there in silence wondering whether something would happen, now that would be unnerving, wouldn't it?
I've read a few online debates about the ending, and others that were supposedly tried and rejected, or suggesting "better" ideas for one, and it's amusing to me that nobody brought up Jim's idea of simply ending after the scream, about the only ending that could've worked.
I think the movie is really effective in its first half, when its primary goal is to look like a real set of home videos. The dialog is pretty realistically blah and they do seem like an authentically boring couple of people. Though I do wonder, since all we ever see Katie do is beadwork, why the house isn't filled with beadwork.
As soon as they ramped the story up, though, I started to get restless. It's impressive what they were able to do on a tiny budget, but that doesn't change the fact that the effects they did try are lame. The moving Ouija board planchette (yes, I did have to look it up) was seriously bad and should have been omitted once they saw how it looked. Similarly, the scary "footprints" shot - so shocking they showed it twice - is horrible, and not in a scary way.
But I think it was the inevitable, almost mechanical way it moved to its foregone conclusion was what really killed it for me. You just know they won't allow a happy ending - it's almost as rigid a genre as romcoms in that respect - so you just sigh and sit back and start looking at your watch.
The original ending seems more effective to me. Not because it would have been more frightening, but because it would have kept the sense of pure dread (see: http://www.horrorsquad.com/2009/10/11/so-what-was-paranormal-activitys-original-ending/).
I do feel that the movie was effective in many parts. But you still have that 'stupid horror movie victim' problem as you noted, and the annoyance of the boyfriend's antics is annoying as well.
But that the demon gets stronger as she (and he to an extent) break down due to fear is interesting to follow.
I still think that Bug and The Cube are the best horror movies (in terms of inducing some degree of true horror) in the last 10 years.
I really, really hated Paranormal Activity. I didn't even think that it was much of a movie. Two dopey (and in the case of Michah *VERY* dopey) white people who get the bejeesus scared out of them by some admittedly neat parlor tricks is really more of a Disney ride than a movie. I think A.O. Scott is probably the closest to my opinion on the film, apparently everyone else on the planet disagrees with me.
First, havent seen it yet but two comments. First, The Blair Witch Project was not as new as it thought it was. The whole found footage thing was done before (even the atrocious Cannibal Holocaust had it) and the rank stupidity of the characters (just walk in one direction and viola, a wal-mart; it's freakin maryland for God's sak). Second, Jim, the "money shot" in Don't Look Back was a joke. After the marvelous film that preceded it, a midget in a raincoat? I was really embarrassed by that. I agree with the premise. Look at the original Chainsaw. It's the scene where Leatherface comes out from behind the door and you DON'T see what he does that is scary. The more graphic scenes aren't nearly as effective. Just a thought.
Paranormal Activity was very disappointing and was a waste of money!! Didn't scare me in the least. Think it was a big hype to get people to spend their money. Was a real bad movie!!!
I don't have much desire to see this movie but I did just read Danse Macabre earlier this year and I also found that passage from the book to among the most memorable.
I'd say the most effective horror movies (in terms of scaring you, not the quality of the movie itself), are the ones where the reveal is actually worse than you imagine. But those are few and far between. Off the top of my head, I can only think of Don't Look Now (definitely), The Ring (arguably), and The Orphanage (if you're a parent, certainly).
Good writeup. I always enjoy reading your thoughts on the genre.
Interesting. For me, the ending was the ONLY part of the movie that was scary. I'm not scared by bumps in the night or doors moving on their own (which is why I'm always perplexed when someone claims that The Haunting is the scariest movie ever... The Innocents is much scarier precisely because we actually see the threat). Until that final, shocking moment, I was actually getting kind of bored with the film, and that includes the off-screen scream, which I didn't find remotely scary and which would have been a lame, amateurish, pseudo-shocking way to end the film. All that build-up just to have the guy go downstairs and scream? It's not scary because it's pretty obvious what's happening in a general sort of way, but there's not enough information for it to be disturbing (and, anyway, the characters are obnoxious and not very likeable anyway, so who cares what's happening to them?).
I actually thought they were going to end it that way, and so I was relieved and gratified by that final scare, which was so shocking, so balls-out audacious and unexpected, that it terrified me.
JE: I understand what you're saying, but I didn't think the ending was audacious (since I felt it was clear from the first time she got up to watch him sleep -- and unquestionably from the moment we see the damaged photo of them as a couple -- where it was going). But what frightens individuals is probably even more personal than what makes them laugh...
Oren Peli's best directorial technique in "Paranormal Activity" is a subtle one: the mild fade transition to the bedroom, a shot that is perfectly composed for its purpose. This brief moment of darkness is like a moment of built-up suspense in and of itself. We know that every time we cut to the bedroom, something 'paranormal' is going to happen, so the very build-up and payoff of the scene transition itself becomes the most suspenseful part of the shot.
Playing on the age-old law of horror, that what you can't see is always scarier than what you can, "Paranormal Activity" becomes an interesting paradox. It is set up in such a way that WE CAN SEE what's going on, but KATIE AND MICAH CANNOT. The sense of dread the film conjures is born from the desire to yell at the screen and wake these poor kids up, and the knowledge that we cannot.
I don't consider myself all that easy to scare, but I must admit, "Paranormal Activity" rattled me. The film has the sincerity of a cast and crew that seem to really believe in this material. I did have some issues with it. The notion that there is only one demonologist in southern California is a bit absurd, and the film's minimalist presentation butts heads with its upfront use of special effects. It forces you to ask yourself, "how did they do that?" which occasionally detracts from the moment, and it finally ends up using one effect too many in its final scene (you know which one I'm talking about). But to the people who've asked, I've told them it is a scary movie. Sounds like you wouldn't entirely disagree with that, Jim.
JE: Nicely put. (I think my favorite creepy touch was the timecode that showed how long Katie stood over Micah in the bed.) The movie itself seemed a little too much of a self-conscious, formal experiment to be truly scary for me (I couldn't get fully caught up in it because I was too conscious of the video camera gimmick), but you made me realize something about that bedroom shot: I never felt they were in real danger as long as the camera was on the tripod, watching them. I don't know why, but that was the way I felt while watching the movie. I sensed that anything really awful had to happen off-camera...
I was entertained throughout this film, up until I left the theater. I don't want to give any spoilers, but the more I thought about the film as a whole, the less I was affected by it. I needed more resolution, more closure. I needed the house to spontaneously burn down (or something like that)at the end.
That being said, when I think about the individual scenes, they still freak me out. They were creepy. And, why is it that afterwards I wanted more than anything to get my hands on a Ouija board and play it? It's probably the same impulse that used to make me want a cigarette during those anti-smoking commercials.
There was a moment in the movie when Katie screams from off-screen for Micah while he's at the computer. He takes a step in her direction, then turns around to grab his camera first before going to see what was going on. That, for me, was the creepiest thing in the movie. It's not about demons or ghosts or whatever, but just as a human moment about the pull of obsession and voyeurism and the moment when you a person sort of detaches from reality/normal modes of existence.
3/4 days later that's still what sits with me. Well, that and the excited guy who asked me "Do you think that was for real or what? It looked real to me" as we were leaving the theater. I didn't have the heart to break it to him.
JE: I remember the same things happening when "Blair Witch" was released. I overheard three college-age guys talking about the "real story" they'd seen in a documentary on the Sci-Fi Channel. It made me laugh. I wanted to say: "Where? Where did you see this 'documentary?' " But I didn't want to disillusion them!
(Spoiler reminder here.) I think you've picked up on one perfectly valid reading of the movie (and it's something I hinted at in my piece above), which is that there's no demon but Katie herself. The psychic warns Katie and Micah that "bad energy" gives the thing more power, and as the bad energy between Katie and Micah increases, so does the severity of the incidents. So, one way of looking at it would be to say (as the psychic does) that the "demon" wants Katie -- wants possession of her to get rid of its competition, Micah. Another would be that the demon is an expression of Katie's rage (see Cronenberg's "The Brood") at being trapped in this house (her first adjustment to romantic cohabitation) with this obnoxious, intrusive "day trader" who won't give her a moment's privacy. And who, perhaps, is more interested in his camera than in her. Maybe the whole movie is the story of a woman who's furious with jealousy over her husband's camera!
Would all this be happening if cameras hadn't been present to record it?
I was thinking of this the whole time I was watching it. Talking to a friend after we'd left the theater, we agreed that "Paranormal Activity" has more in common with "Funny Games" than it does with "The Blair Witch Project".
Of the three films, "Paranormal Activity" and "Funny Games" are the two that go to great lengths to remind you that you are watching a movie. There is no evidence of editing or shot composition in "Blair Witch", only moments when the characters turn the camera off for awhile. "Funny Games" routinely breaks the fourth wall and "Paranormal Activity" uses, as you said, fades, inter titles, and fast forwards that call attention to the process.
But where the two movies (Funny Games and Paranormal Activity) really begin to merge is in their utilization of the camera and audience. In "Funny Games", we are reminded early that we are watching a work of fiction when Paul (or whatever his name is) looks at us and winks. Later, at the film's most reprehensible moment, Paul gets a hold of the remote control and rewinds to before his friend had been shot. Suggesting that we have had the same power Paul utilized all along. This family is clearly trapped within the confines of a film. We can save them from their deplorable fate if we simply stop watching.
Micah has the same power in "Paranormal Activity". It is established early and often that the very act of filming is egging this demonic presence on, mocking him, daring him to up the ante. If Micah would simply stop shooting, there is a significant chance that none of this might have happened. In both cases, it is the act of watching the dooms these characters. If we cared, we'd leave them the hell alone.
JE: Terrific comparison. Both are experiments presented as feature films. Or vice-versa.
Great post on a film I consider one of the best "scare machines" ever made.
One of the things I think the movie does brilliantly is present so many "dead herrings" where people will anticipate the next scare to come from. Then, while even seasoned horror fans are concentrating on the herrings, the movie slips in the real scare past their defenses. It's the same principle behind finding the scary image on this page:
http://www.rumdesign.com/wrong/
As Rollie Schott put it earlier, it's the combination of being 100% sure something's *going* to happen in the bedroom each time, combined with not giving any indication as to just what *will* happen, which makes this movie such an effective terror delivery system.
(And I'd like to add "The Thing" and "Audition" to the list of films "showing things worse than you can imagine").
JE: "Terror delivery system" -- love that phrase!
What surprised me most about the film were the reactions of the crowd around me. I saw it in a nearly sold out show of mostly young people. Other horror movies are often met with laughter, sometimes nervous laughter and sometimes derisive laughter. As you noted, that wasn't the case here. I heard sobbing and whimpering and people wanting to go home, but they were taking this one pretty seriously. But the really interesting thing is that this was already happening very early in the film. A moment where a door slowly seems to move of its own accord got screams and gasps from everyone, despite the fact that it isn't presented as a jump-scare.
I think this illustrates one way that the film's format works so well: this is the way people most people experience 'real' ghosts in mass media. I'd wager that most people don't imagine spirits and supernatural activity to appear the way Hollywood generally depicts them, with expensive CGI and gruesome make-up. Reality programs like Ghosthunters have definitely changed that. For most people, supernatural phenomena are blurry footage on a television program of a chair moving on its own or a garbled recording of voices or someone describing hearing strange noises or even photos on a website much like the one the film's characters examine. In that sense, I think Oren Peli has made a very media-saavy horror film that allows people to connect to the horror by presenting it in a manner they identify as 'real.'
As for the ending, I think it works (other than the decision to include that very last special effect) even if one can see it coming because in a way, that's the nature of the horror film: the expectation. As noted in "Terror in the Aisle," there's sort of a pact between the filmmaker and the audience, particularly with the shock scare: You know I'm about to show you something scary, but you don't know how, or most importantly, exactly when.
Man, this discussion has been exciting. I can't put it down.
Another thing. What do you call it when you convince yourself you're seeing something that isn't there? I tried to find the name for it online but couldn't come up with anything.
I ask because of the way the film uses technology to materialize what Micah and Katie think they're going to see. Whatever's going on, isn't actually there (at least not at the level it is after they start filming). They are told that if they look (start filming) they will see something that otherwise wouldn't be there.
We are convinced that we will see something, and stemming from a conscious desire to be correct, convince ourselves it IS there. I am reminded of the piece you wrote awhile back, Jim, about humans as backward rationalizing people. We think it's there before we see it. This is what is scary about "Paranormal Activity" - that the act of looking, the act of KNOWING, is what's dangerous. This demon would have rewarded willful ignorance. That should send a chill down the spine of any intellectual.
The major difference between PA and "Blair Witch" (which makes PA a far more terrifying film) is the setting. Granted, I saw "Blair Witch" in Baltimore, MD (not too far from the setting) and I lived in an apartment that abutted a wooded area, so I didn't sleep for many nights while my mind played fear tricks on me. But it still took place in a secluded woods, and the easiest way to deal with the fear elements of "Blair Witch" is not to go to some secluded woods looking for a mythical witch.
PA takes place in a common residential home in the heart of a major American city. I kept thinking, "where the hell were the neighbors?" Either they thought it was a domestic dispute that would work itself out, or . . . well anyway, what the film does with the Psychic is very brilliant as well. He says #1 - its a demon, not a ghost and #2 - it will follow them no matter where they go, and finally #3 - he can't help them in any way. At that point in the movie, your realize this couple is in a no-win situation, with the only possible resolution being they break up and Micah leaves, which still leaves Katie alone to deal with the demon.
Finally, there is a certain creepy element of voyerism (sp?) in the film. Micah's fascination with the camera seems a thinly veiled metaphor on pornographic addiction (with the proliferation of celebrity sex tapes, ask yourself how many couples actually DO set up a camera by their bed for their own entertainment?), but you also have Katie staring at Micah for hours while he sleeps to create a sense of dread. The demon also watches the couple, observes them in their most intimate moments, and (as with the broken picture), expresses rage and jealousy over their intimacy.
Adam N said:
"That said, the amateurishness of the acting, combined with the near-structuralist presentation -- a daytime/nighttime alternation -- does really interesting things to an audience -- possibly on purpose"
I haven't seen PA yet, but this comment reminded me of how I felt after seeing what for me was the scariest movie of the last decade or so, Open Water. I found the acting in that movie to be "amateurish" as well, yet it elevated the movie rather than detract from it. I think the same can be said for Blair Witch, although that movie didn't have nearly the same impact on me.
But I think it's an interesting idea that unknown, even bad actors can somehow make these horror movies more credible, as it seems as if the events are "really" happening to "real" people. I doubt any of these movies would work as well with Matt Damon in the lead.
And I have so much to say about Funny Games (I got to it well after the threads here) that I don't know where to begin. I'll start by saying I thought it was brilliant, and subverted the use of its "movie stars" in a kind of inverse way to these other horror films. Jim will probably hate me for this, but it reminded me of a Bunuel film.
JE: In the early scenes of "Funny Games" I think Haneke was going for a Bunuelian surrealistic feel. That tension is broken when he tips over into brutal violence, though. But please go ahead and post your ideas over at one of the "Funny Games Experiment" posts. Maybe they will revive that discussion now that more people have seen the movie(s). As for "Paranormal Activity," Reid Rosefelt offers an appreciation of the actors here: http://bit.ly/3tQaYM .
That article makes it sound like the writer doesn't really understand what acting is. If nobody is noticing any acting going on at all, that's called good acting. Bad or "adequate" acting is something else entirely. I would call the acting in PA barely adequate (as opposed to "good"), precisely because I CAN see them acting.
That's also why I disagree with Todd's comment above. Bad acting takes me out of the movie, and therefore makes horror movies less credible, not more. If the events seem to be happening to "real" people, that's a sign of good acting (the reverse, however, is not necessarily true... a performance can be good while being unrealistic). I can't imagine a scenario in which I'd find a performance amateurish but feel like I'm watching a real person. The two are mutually exclusive (there's a big difference between a non-professional actor and an amateurish performance). That's one of the reasons why I think Blair Witch is much better than PA: the three performers in that film are all genuinely good actors, while the actress in PA isn't very good at all (the guy's pretty good, though).
"I understand what you're saying, but I didn't think the ending was audacious"
I didn't say the ending was audacious, I said the final scare was audacious (particularly for such a low-budget movie). I was totally not expecting it, so it was a really disorienting, "WTF" moment for me.
JE: I meant the final scare, too -- the last few seconds of the film.
Again, I'm not talking about the last few seconds of the film. I'm talking about that one particular second, [SPOILER] the actual special effect of the body flying into the camera. Everything after that was fairly predictable (though still unnerving), but that one second was a shocker.
JE: OK, got it! I thought you meant the lunge at the camera, which I think was telegraphed by the previous effect.
I guess "final scare" was ambiguous, but I didn't think of the lunge at the camera as much of a scare.
JE: Me neither. But the three girls behind me nearly leapt into my lap! That got 'em more than the previous one, maybe because they were geared up to expect... something.
What's most scary about this movie is how there seem to be people dumb enough to think that it is a record of anything factual -- again, probably due to so much junk "reality" TV about the paranormal. "Paranormal reality TV", isn't that an oxymoron?
So tonight it was between this, or driving 50 minutes to the nearest theater playing "A Serious Man" around here. Boy did we make the wrong choice. This is the first movie in recent memory where I very, very, very nearly walked out (to Adam N: regarding the two guys you saw leaving, one of them muttering the he "couldn't take it any more," are you sure he didn't mean the utter boredom? :P)
Yeah, this movie just didn't work for me. I agree with the assessment that the movie was "a set of formal conceits that worked in some ways, but were doomed in others," except for me it was all just doomed, and I was left only with the aesthetic distance the conceit created. There were (finally) a couple of chills in a couple of the night scenes in the second half, but for the most part nothing that occurred in the bedroom shocked me, and everything that happened outside of the bedroom (maybe 70% of the movie, to my surprise) annoyed the hell out of me. I kept wishing they'd save the fast-forward technique for whenever Micah was opening his mouth.
I think part of the problem was that all the jolts and parlor tricks were far too telegraphed and obvious: for one, the only thing the reverberation on the soundtrack did was tip you off that something is about to move! For two, it was already pretty obvious what was about to move to begin with ("Oh, he left the Ouija board in the middle of the room... gee, wonder what's going to happen...").
And I also agree with Meinert in that there were too many "incremental mini-payoffs." Every time something sort of interesting was finally happening at night, the film cut to the following morning and I slunk back down in my chair. I understand what they were going for (a slow build up without tipping their hat too soon), but for me it was just frustrating, especially since everything outside of the bedroom was so borrrring.
And then the ending. I guess it worked for me in the moment in exactly that sort of cheap "Boo!" kind of way, but then I immediately realized the most horrifying thing about the entire experience: I spent money and time watching a movie about as scary (and entertaining) as one of those Ghost Trackers/Monsterquest cable shows and ends (SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER) with the grace and originality of one of those annoying YouTube shock videos.
But eh, just one man's opinion.
P.S.: My viewing experience seemed to differ greatly from a lot of yours. The theater was moderately filled, mostly with teenagers, but they were laughing constantly. Not so much at the movie (it was more like relieved/stress-breaking laughter, because they all did seem to be pretty scared), but they laughed a ton never the less. I doubt it did, but maybe that affected my enjoyment?
I haven't seen the movie, but I wonder how much the advertising campaign contributed to the experience people are having in the theaters. If the big scares are as "telegraphed" as some say (although at least, unlike "Quarantine," they don't give the final shot away in both the trailer and the poster), then I wonder how much of the whimpering and distress is really caused by the expectation of being scared. I don't necessarily mean build-up and anxiety, although those can be genuinely upsetting and often, for me, much more disturbing than the actual scare, but the build-up from the ads themselves--that this is "one of the scariest movies ever," accompanied by green-tinged footage of people in a movie theater freaking out and jumping out of their seats. If you go in expecting to be terrified, does that in and of itself increase the likelihood that you will be?
Oh, and completely agree about "amateurish" acting and "Open Water." I think that amateurish in this context doesn't necessarily mean "bad," more unpolished. You get a sense of characters who haven't necessarily thought out what they're going to say, and who maybe don't remain consistent throughout. In some way, it both takes you out of the movie and sucks you into the movie. It takes you out because, of course, anytime you notice the artifice your suspension of disbelief is interrupted. But I think it also sucks you in, maybe because it can make things seem unpredictable. If you have perfectly scripted, beautifully acted characters, the movie may be amazing, but you have a pretty good sense of how those characters will react to a given situation. Less-developed characters, like those in "Open Water," portrayed by less-professional actors, bring an air of unpredictability. Because you don't know who these people are, you don't know what they'll do, and that makes the human drama all the more powerful as a source of horror.
"If you go in expecting to be terrified, does that in and of itself increase the likelihood that you will be?"
I think yes -- there's definitely an element of a self-fulfilling prophecy going on here. I know that in my viewing experience, there were multiple times when the majority of the audience (mostly teenagers) would SCREAM hysterically at what I thought were really minor and obvious jolts (I literally threw my hands up at one point and looked around as if to say, "Really, that scared you, audience?"). I think the communal experience creates a tangible vibe where people expect to be scared, because, well, they're watching a scary movie that has been deemed to be scary by their peers, so how could it not be? It's as though the mystique of the movie is scaring them more than what's actually happening on the screen.
But then I also wonder if this is a movie I would have enjoyed a lot more if I watched it when I was still a teenager myself. Not that I'd necessarily be more prone to being frightened by demons, but maybe in that I wouldn't have seen as many movies as I have, and wouldn't have been watching this one at that aesthetic distance, being able to pick up on obvious set ups and predict what was about to happen. I think a lot of those teenagers were watching it without that sort of formal knowledge at the forefront of their minds, and got more easily jerked around (in a good way) by the movie as a result.
For my money, it's the best tackling of the handheld camera medium since De Palma's "Redacted" (2007).
I thought the final shot made for a decent payoff myself. Mostly because the demon seemed to be well aware it was being taped, so looking right at the camera was pretty unsettling. Kind of like "you're next!!!"
On a sidenote: Why do these ghosts and demons do the lamest things when they haunt people? If I crossed over from the depths of Hell I would find more interesting things to do in someone's house than move their keys no matter how limited I was. Now the Lamaria demon from "Drag Me to Hell," there's a demon who didn't fool around.
One of the scary things about this movie, beyond the obvious paranormal events, is how Katie is trapped not by the demon as much as by the guy who loves her. By the halfway point of the story, everybody watching knows that Micah's idiocy is going to get her killed. So what's she going to do? Leave?
What's ironic is that while Micah spends the entire movie foolishly disregarding everything Katie tells him, in the end he finally does go along with what she wants...and it's the biggest mistake he's made so far. Listen carefully to Katie's voice, when she refuses to leave the house: "I think it'll be alright." The demon's voice is subtly audible underneath it, in an eerie doubling. Then she smiles. Brrrr. Too bad Micah chose that moment to do what she told him.
One of the scary things about this movie, beyond the obvious paranormal events, is how Katie is trapped not by the demon as much as by the guy who loves her. By the halfway point of the story, everybody watching knows that Micah's idiocy is going to get her killed. So what's she going to do? Leave?
What's ironic is that while Micah spends the entire movie foolishly disregarding everything Katie tells him, in the end he finally does go along with what she wants...and it's the biggest mistake he's made so far. Listen carefully to Katie's voice, when she refuses to leave the house: "I think it'll be alright." The demon's voice is subtly audible underneath it, in an eerie doubling. Then she smiles. Brrrr. Too bad Micah chose that moment to do what she told him.
What a nice thread this has been, very good points all around. I would say one of the creepier elements of the film is the fetishistic appreciation of the house itself. We spend all of our time there (save for a few minutes in the driveway at the beginning, something I would equate to a "this is your last chance to flee, but you won't" type moment as well as a "very calculated and following the "rules" of the screenplay introduction that in that perfect 'according to STORY' way sets up the action but it follows the rules to their intended effect so well that you don't mind McKee popping in there as much, the book sells for a reason). I think a lot of effective horror films such as this, ones that don't deal with real life terror like mass bombings or a disease that does not act as a stand in for social upheaval (though I wonder when disease doesn't stand for social upheaval on screen) is actually addressing the fears of suburbia, which are largely imagined and continue to spur on sales of home security devices and, God help the fearful suburbanite, handguns. After one screening of Paranormal Activity I would bet that you could randomly select a member of the audience and they would be able to describe the layout of the home in more than familiar detail, maybe they would even know which drawer they keep the silverware in in the kitchen. This sense of familiarity with our possessions is a vital aspect of where the effectiveness of this film derives it's power. In the book "Understanding Comics" Scott McCloud addresses the issue of iconography, how we can look at a light socket, only a circle with two dashes and a hole, and could see a face. We are naturally attracted to giving over to objects a sense of the personal, of the human. When a door opens on its own or a Ouija pointer moves it is in some sense a manifestation of these feelings of possession, ownership, completeness coming to life to haunt us. These are feelings that should be reserved for humans only, a crime I fear we are all guilty of from time to time. Also, the power of the house in suburban horror is almost undeniable. It's a mix of iconography in a different sense (also the brilliant idea of making the monster the static shot of the camera fixed on the couple as they sleep, the poster as film, an invented archetype, a savy strategy) and to some degree nostalgia, a ghost(demon) that will continue to haunt us. In Night of the Living Dead we become very familiar with that house as well, as in Poltergeist or Texas Chainsaw Massacre, (also I think cinephiles get a kick out of b&w 16mm from the '60's, the scrappy always enduring and inherently nostalgic stock) and this does serve to keep the budget low on these low budget pictures as well as concentrate the narrative/thematic perspective onto the idea of the home, the family, the society as it is where we live and lay our heads and ultimately what we are apart of even if we think we're different or removed from it. It is in our homes, in the nooks and crevices, of the squeaks and moans from old pipes, that we are at our most vulnerable and comfortable. The house becomes imbued with all of our secrets, our fears, our desires, and our sense (lack) of security. That the house in this is also strangely absent of things that would make it feel really lived in. It feels very much like a model home, seemingly furnished but missing the mess of life. Even Micah's guitar is fake, one that, as my guitar aficionado friend informs me, is one that is 1) lame and real musician's would not use outside of a studio setting where you could screw around with it to get weirder noises than its designed for and 2) has a microchip in it that allows for the strings always to be in tune, essentially doing the work for you and removing the musician from that connection to the guitar. That Micah comes off as kind of a prat and techno junkie its the perfect guitar for him. So is this a story of the suburbanites fear of the 'other' of losing possession of his things which rebel against him, is it the story of a break-up, one that the woman finally brings to its inevitable conclusion (and how nice to see a real-world cutie like Katie in a film, I know they're supposed to be an average couple but its still nice to see someone on the screen I would want to date or spend time with as opposed to the probiotic pre-pubscent stacked and plastered Megan Fox's of the world, real women rock!) or it could just be a scary yarn. For what it's worth I feel that this is a movie that followed good instincts, one rooted in the film that was being made as well as a new take on classic iconography. Something darker than night down that long flight of stairs.
I read this and the posts (that were available) almost 2 weeks ago. I agree with the idea of the ending - it should have ended with her going down stairs and screaming and his running down and silence.
However, I haven't felt fear during a movie since I was a kid and I didn't expect to with this one either. I did experience a certain tension which most of the gore type of movies never provide. For me, they are cliche and usually make me laugh.
I, personally, enjoyed the way the film used the night / day transitions. I know the person I was with as well as myself chuckled at the real type of relationship problems they exhibited. (all credit to the person who brought up the idea of the movie being a metaphor for relationships in a post above)
In that way this movie has much more in common with "Night of the Living Dead" than with "The Blair Witch Project" in which there was an alternative (and easily readable) idea behind the film.
Thanks for your essay and to fellow readers for once again making a good movie experience even more interesting and enjoyable.
I just saw it tonight. The ending was scary and all, but it felt too Hollywood. I read somewhere that Speilberg thought up that ending, that originally the film ended with the cops bursting in and shooting Katie. The ending even uses the rank Hollywood trick of providing wiggle room for a sequel. "Paranormal II, Katie in Vegas". A scream in the dark? better. And there is at least one lousy line, something like, "Okay, one more night in the house but if this doesn't work out I'm calling the Demonologist!"
I liked the sexuality of the movie. No wonder that demon wanted Katie, she was voluptuous in a real world, I could get that kind of girl, way -- and of course Micah affirms Katie's our presumptions with an early comment suggesting mad skills in bed.
Primal fear, primal sexuality, the movie works and the market has spoken, this movie is succeeding on word of mouth. You can't fake that any more that Katie could fake an orgasm, it's all real in this one folks.
While watching the movie, I was first reminded of Blair Witch by it's style. But I was nagged by some little parallels to another movie. This other film had a monster that approached with dread, couldn't be seen, pounded the door, and left it's footprints behind: Dr. Morbius' own Id Monster in the sci-fi/horror film Forbidden Planet.
Basically, in Paranormal Activity, Katie is stalked and ultimately possessed by a monster created by her own id!
Maybe I'm too late for this thread, but I think the last final moment (spoiler in brackets) [the lunge at the camera] was effective for a reason ignored here. I agree completely that it was pretty perfunctory: we already knew what it supposedly revealed, and there were far scarier moments earlier when the danger remained unseen. But I found it a great bookend because of the revealed attitude of the entity. We had already suspected that the camera and macho taunts were the very thing that was giving the demon the power it had, but something I found truly unsettling about its behavior, and the final money shot, was the playfulness of it. The last image to me was a great clincher of just how much the demon was reveling in its opportunity, and how eager it was to reveal itself at Michah's invitation. It reminds me of my favorite exchange from The Exorcist:
Demon: What an excellent day for an exorcism.
Father Damien Karras: You would like that?
Demon: Intensely.
Father Damien Karras: But wouldn't that drive you out of Regan?
Demon: It would bring us together.
Father Damien Karras: You and Regan?
Demon: You and us.
Anyway, I haven't been truly scared at a movie since I watched Poltergeist when I was 12, but this one got me. I think that when we say a kid is "afraid of the dark", what we're really saying is "afraid something we can't see will mess with us while we're asleep". This film managed to awaken that kid in me.