For movie audiences here, there and everywhere, it's a paranormal paradise of peril

October 17, 11:54 PMSF Indie Movie ExaminerOmar Moore

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Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat in the runaway hit "Paranormal Activity", directed by Oren Peli.
Paramount Pictures

If you hear loud shrill sounds these days at your local movie theater it’s probably the shrieking of an audience watching “Paranormal Activity”, the little movie that could, and has, scared up a fortune. An independent work made for around $10,000, Oren Peli’s film has spooked the everloving beejeesus out of moviegoers nationwide, fast becoming a cult phenomenon. At a recent screening here in San Francisco someone vomited. (And a certain someone almost stepped in it.) A non-vomit customer uttered nervously, “I’ve gotta go home.”

At this point Mr. Peli’s movie was barely halfway through.

“Paranormal Activity”, more a supernatural thriller than a true horror film, stars relative unknown actors Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat, who play a couple who in 2006 moved to suburban San Diego to a house (which happens to be Mr. Peli’s real-life house.) In the house things go bump in the night and day, but it is (for maximum effect) a packed-to-capacity darkened theater house and the power of an audience’s imagination that does more to deliver the chills and screams than anything “Paranormal Activity” shows.

“Oh my God!”

Nothing was even happening at this moment when one woman yelled blasphemously.

Everyone brings their fears with them. If the movie theater isn’t packed to the gills, the atmosphere isn’t nearly as spicy as is required to enjoy being frightened to your core.

That said, “Transformers 2” was more horrific (aka an utter disaster) than Mr. Peli’s spare, clever and subtle effects frightener. 

And by film’s end, the proof was in the pudding. Mr. Peli’s nimble movie lingers long after you watch. He also wrote and edited it. In its opening weekend (October 9-11) its box office take was a stunning $7.9 million on just 159 screens in the U.S. and Canada, an astonishing (and record-breaking) figure for such few screens.  Most films are released on between 2500-3000 screens in North America.  By the time you read this, “Paranormal Activity” will have made a whole lot more money.

“Paranormal Activity” may make you afraid to leave your video camera on at night.

The operative word is “may”.

So let’s put the operative word “may” to the test. Leave your video camera on while you sleep tonight. Whether alone or with your significant other, record yourselves sleeping. Then watch the results. What do you see? What do you think you see? Will a Timothy Leary LSD trip make the results any more revealing? Send the videos to yours truly at editor@popcornreel.com – and please, don’t fake them or send anything inappropriate, for heaven’s sake.

For those who think films like “Paranormal Activity” – which “The Blair Witch Project” only wishes it could rival – are hogwash fakes, consider “The Amityville Horror”, the original 1979 film starring James Brolin and Margot Kidder, based on the true (though disputed) story of the Lutz family’s experience living in a haunted house on Long Island, New York. Contemplate this year’s “The Haunting In Connecticut”, starring Virginia Madsen, based on a true story about a house that was formerly a funeral parlor, a house that in the 1980s had spirits freaking out its occupants in the Nutmeg State.

Whoever thought up the expression “as safe as houses” didn’t have either of these two movies in mind.

Aaarrrggh!

That cry was from a film critic several days ago, screaming for his very life as “Paranormal Activity” terrorized him to pieces. It’s an authentically scary experience.