Just saw it last night.
Awesome film!
Here's a very good pre-release article by a blogger who hasn't yet seen the film but intends to:
http://www.film.com/movies/paranormal-activity/story/preview-paranormal-activity/30201492
Preview: Paranormal Activity
Will the "real footage" angle still scare people with Paranormal Activity?
Ammon Gilbert, Sep 19, 2009
Ten years ago a little movie called The Blair Witch Project was unleashed upon the masses, simultaneously scaring the pants off people while making a ton of money at the box office. The formula was simple: use a video camera to candidly tape a group of "real" people as scary stuff happens to them; don't actually showing anything and attempt to convince the audience it's real. At the time, no one had seen anything like it before, and thanks to co-marketing on this new thing called the "Internet," half of moviegoers thought it was the real deal.
Jump ahead to today, where the Internet is a part of people's daily lives, where reality TV is one of the most popular forms of entertainment, where home videos are given the YouTube treatment by just about everybody, and where horror movies have hit another box office hot streak. Times have changed to some degree, but some things remain the same: People love a good scare. The trailer for a little independent horror flick hit the Internet this week, invoking flashbacks to the days of Blair Witch, and yet somehow promising something new, something fresh, and something truly scary. The movie? Paranormal Activity, and thanks to Paramount Pictures, we'll have a chance to check it out this Halloween season.
Directed, written, and produced by Oren Peli for a modest budget of just $11,000, Paranormal Activity has a simple setup: a couple videotapes their new house while they're sleeping because they're convinced it's haunted. We share the couple's terrifying and intimate experience as we watch the shaky camera work, dark and moody amateur-style footage, and doors and chandeliers that appear to be moving on their own.
I hate to say it but I wrote a similar script two years ago and shopped that script around Hollywood to only two other film companies (both passed, of course, but one company said they really dug my writing style and asked me to keep in touch). My script is sadly inferior to this movie's treatment of the same premise. The very reason why the couple in this new movie chose to videotape the freaky stuff in their house was that they were looking for proof of what was happening to them--a VERY believable motivation for us to swallow the idea of two laymen not only videoing scary stuff, but also for why they would keep grabbing the camera again and again as the scary stuff just kept on happening. My script was not as clever as that. And sadly, just about ALL of the
Blair Witch-style mockumdentaries out there all have that one flaw in common: who the hell is stupid enough to grab the camera and continuing shooting while monsters/zomies/aliens/ghosts/etc are doing their thing? But this movie makes us very comfortable with the idea that this man and woman really would keep grabbing the camera again and again. And believability is key to a film like this. They also knew when to be vague about certain factual discussions and to simply let the audience fill in the blanks on their own (a very effective psychological tool in crafting good horror).
A few additional keys to this film's success:
1) dialogue MUST feel absolutely real
2) the female character needed to be very sympathetic and 100% lacking in annoyance-potential
3) the geography of the house needs to be made crystal clear
A few things I thought were phenomenally well-done (
SPOILERS! CLICK AND DRAG):
a)
the foot prints in the baby powder
b)
the swinging chandelier
c)
the usage of time-lapse
Was I scared? Yes!! And that was the point. I predict a good healthy run of no less than $50 million in domestic box office for this film-- maybe even $80 million. And since the budget was a piddling little $11,000, that means THE MARGIN OF PROFIT is already through the fricking roof on this thing!!! Thus it WILL be celebrated in Hollywood, and eventually emmulated and copied.
::EDIT::
Here's some info on the budget, the limited number of screens it's currently playing on, and the ongoing box office take. For anyone not famioliar with "per theatre average" most movies of today are released on no less than 3,000 screens and (unless it's a true blockbuster) barely pull in $2,000 per theatre (about $1,800 per theatre is more typical). But this movie is being released into so few movie theatres at this time that people are driving from as far away as an hour to see it. And when theya rrive, the theatres are close to sold out. THEY ARE PACKING OUT THE THEATRES WITH THIS MOVIE! The per-theatre-average is exceeding $5,000 with this movie. Those are the kinds of numbers that make the Hollywood bean-counters stand up and pay attention.
http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=paranormalactivity.htm
http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=weekend&id=paranormalactivity.htm
2009 Date ....Rank .. Weekend Gross ...... Theaters .... Change / Per Theatre Avg. ..... Gross-to-Date .... Week#
Sep 25–27 ... 48 .......$77,873 ................... 12 .................. - / $6,489 ....................... $77,873 ............ 1
Oct 2–4 ....... 20 .......$532,242 .................. 33 ............. +21 / $16,129 ...................... $776,763 .............. 2
Oct 9–11 ...... 4 ... $7,900,695 ................. 160 ............ +127 / $49,379 ................... $9,113,936 ............. 3
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