'Blair Witch' ghost haunts 'Paranormal'
It's great to see 2nd ultra-cheap film make splash -- but is it scary?
When I attended a screening of "The Blair Witch Project" in early 1999, the hype was already beginning for the low-budget indie horror film that featured no recognizable stars, a relentlessly shaky camera style and a boatload of scares created not from blood and guts and gore, but from sounds and ideas and mood.
I thought the movie was scary and smart as hell and I figured it would make a splash, but I never would have guessed it would gross a quarter of a billion dollars worldwide and create a ripple effect that included a sequel and too many spoofs to count. (Anyone remember "The Tony Blair Witch Project"?)
The hype and glory was followed by the inevitable backlash, with some saying there was no there there -- that the movie itself was annoying and underwhelming.
I'd still rank it among the 50 scariest movies of all time. As I said after the backlash kicked in, if you knew nothing about the buzz for "Blair Witch" and you watched while home alone, I believe you'd feel the chills -- and you'd be thinking about it when you tried to fall asleep that night.
A decade later, a similar frenzy surrounds another low-budget, shaky-cam, cast-of-unknowns, virtually blood-free scary movie: "Paranormal Activity."
And we're probably about two days away from the backlash.
The story behind "Paranormal Activity" is at least as compelling as the finished product. Every aspiring filmmaker with a camera and a YouTube account is thinking, "I could be next!"
Shot over seven days by writer/director Oren Peli at his home for a reported $15,000, "Paranormal Activity" is presented as "found footage" -- amateur video shot by a San Diego couple documenting the disturbing phenomena taking place in their home. As with "Blair Witch" (and "Cloverfield," among others) every frame stays true to this "home movie" conceit.
In early 2008, the movie was making the rounds and wound up with Steven Spielberg, who watched it on the recommendation of a colleague. Spielberg loved it. He was also supposedly so freaked out by it he brought the screener back to the studio in a garbage bag.
Really? The guy who wrote "Poltergeist" and directed "Jaws" was that scared by this film? OK.
In any case, there was talk of turning "Paranormal Activity" into a big-budget film, but Paramount Pictures wisely decided to get behind the original, creating a brilliant marketing campaign that included midnight screenings at college campuses and of course, myriad Internet strategies.
It paid off, big-time. With a gross of $62 million and counting, "Paranormal Activity" stands to become one of the most successful films ever in terms of cost-to-profit ratio. As was the case with the "Blair Witch" stars, unknowns Micah Sloat and Katie Featherston, who play the couple haunted in "PA," have become overnight sensations. (What happens next is up for grabs. The "Blair Witch" actors work here and there, but none was able to parlay that 1999 splash into big-time success.)
But what about the film itself? Is it really one of the scariest movies of all time?
In a word: No.
To say the film builds slowly is to say it takes glaciers a while to pick up speed. The first 40 minutes are virtually fright-free, with an excruciatingly deliberate buildup of Micah and Katie yapping, flirting, yapping, joking, yapping, yapping . . .
It's realistic. And pretty dull.
Micah follows Katie with his camera as they talk about her history with a mysterious presence that has been haunting her on and off since she was 8. They keep the camera running even while they sleep, because true to the scary-demon code, the evil entity usually waits until 2:30 a.m. before he starts with the groaning and the pounding, because it just wouldn't be as scary if it happened in broad daylight while friends were over for a barbecue and a round of Guitar Hero.
Writer/director Peli shows flashes of talent in the final act, creating a few bona fide chills and using time-honored scary-movie tricks to get you to jump in your seat.
The ending, reportedly suggested by Spielberg, is jarring and dark and cool --and it leaves the door wide open for a sequel.
As a 15-minute viral video, "Paranormal Activity" could have been a minor masterpiece. As a feature film, it's stretched so thin, I can't give more than 2½ stars.
But to quote the movie-trailer cliche, in a world where we get six "Saw" films, it's encouraging to see a nearly no-budget project make such a big splash.
Even if it's not nearly as scary as "The Blair Witch Project."