The first half of the 2000’s was a pretty dire time for horror enthusiasts as it pretty much exclusively consisted of sloppy sequels, or generally underwhelming new films due to their reliance on decades old tropes to get scares. Whilst there was certainly the odd diamond in the rough with titles like The Ring, for the most part early 00’s horror is a period I would be quite happy to forget ever existed. Once Saw made it big in 2004 the industry shifted gears into making ultra-low budget gory ‘torture porn’ flicks that dominated the industry right the way up to the late 00’s and early 2010’s. But in 2007 Paramount saw the opportunity to cash in on the ultra-low budget craze but that wasn’t a gore fest, in fact it was almost completely the opposite.
Paranormal Activity was made on a budget of around $15,000 and was doing the circuits at indie horror film festivals when Paramount noticed it, picked it up for a wide release, and thanks to some clever marketing tactics it became the most profitable film in history grossing just under $200 million. It took a full two years for the film to actually get a wide release due to the marketing strategy quite literally tying the film in to limited releases to get buzz for the film drummed up. They’d show it in theatres near college campuses, get all the students to go watch it and thanks to the film’s found footage premise and claims that it was indeed real footage social media became ablaze for a very long time with people slowly getting the ability to see what many were calling the scariest film they’d ever seen.
It's recently come into the limelight again after a scientific study by BroadbandChoices determined that it was the fifth scariest film of all time. Let's put it to the test shall we?
The film centres on a couple, Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat, who having recently moved in together are noticing unexplainable occurrences, most notably Katie feeling like there is some sort of presence in the house with them. It is revealed that Katie has felt like this most of her life, but it is now far more intense and frequent than it ever was before. Micah, under the pretence of hoping to document the strange phenomena and help Katie overcome this fear she has, sets up a camera in the bedroom which will record while they sleep and at select points during the day when either one of the couple turn the camera on.
The couple call in the help of a medium who informs them that they believe a demonic presence is in the house and attached specifically to Katie. He warns them not to try and contact it or aggravate it in the hope that it may simply go away if it is ignored. Micah being a real stand-up guy ignores all of this advice and does whatever he can to antagonise the entity, as well as try to contact it using a Ouija board. This of course pisses the demon off and as a result the paranormal activity the couple experience not only becomes more frequent but also progressively more violent as the demon begins to assert its dominance over the couple.
Paranormal Activity was made on a budget of around $15,000 and was doing the circuits at indie horror film festivals when Paramount noticed it, picked it up for a wide release, and thanks to some clever marketing tactics it became the most profitable film in history grossing just under $200 million. It took a full two years for the film to actually get a wide release due to the marketing strategy quite literally tying the film in to limited releases to get buzz for the film drummed up. They’d show it in theatres near college campuses, get all the students to go watch it and thanks to the film’s found footage premise and claims that it was indeed real footage social media became ablaze for a very long time with people slowly getting the ability to see what many were calling the scariest film they’d ever seen.
It's recently come into the limelight again after a scientific study by BroadbandChoices determined that it was the fifth scariest film of all time. Let's put it to the test shall we?
The film centres on a couple, Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat, who having recently moved in together are noticing unexplainable occurrences, most notably Katie feeling like there is some sort of presence in the house with them. It is revealed that Katie has felt like this most of her life, but it is now far more intense and frequent than it ever was before. Micah, under the pretence of hoping to document the strange phenomena and help Katie overcome this fear she has, sets up a camera in the bedroom which will record while they sleep and at select points during the day when either one of the couple turn the camera on.
The couple call in the help of a medium who informs them that they believe a demonic presence is in the house and attached specifically to Katie. He warns them not to try and contact it or aggravate it in the hope that it may simply go away if it is ignored. Micah being a real stand-up guy ignores all of this advice and does whatever he can to antagonise the entity, as well as try to contact it using a Ouija board. This of course pisses the demon off and as a result the paranormal activity the couple experience not only becomes more frequent but also progressively more violent as the demon begins to assert its dominance over the couple.
For a film just shy of an hour and a half it’s quite a slow burn. It takes probably around half an hour for anything particularly creepy to happen, and the way the film is paced is similar to a rollercoaster in the sense of the daytime sequences are often used to build tension as Micah finds a new way to antagonise the demon, and the night-time sequences allow for the scares to take place as the demon retaliates in increasingly terrifying ways. What starts off as barely audible growls and incomprehensible mumblings picked up by the cameras microphone escalates into turning electrical appliances on and off, slamming doors, damaging items in the house, and ultimately possessing Katie a number of times. It all builds to an extremely unsettling conclusion where Micah is murdered by a possessed Katie before she destroys the camera.
Being made on such a small budget, Paranormal Activity leaves a lot to the imagination. The demonic entity is never seen, and visual effects are restricted to just one or two shots in the entire film which even then are fleeting. Much of the film is simply Katie & Micah conversing with each other in largely improvised dialogue, or watching them react to the demons presence with the camera being stationary in a corner of the room much of the time. It’s one of the most barebones productions that mainstream Hollywood has ever produced, and yet because of this extreme low budget quality the film manages to be successfully scary, at least on a first viewing.
The film is completely unpredictable in where it will go next because you have so little information on what is happening, and just as you become comfortable that nothing scary will happen during the day you start to notice strange things happening in the background, or whilst characters are out of the room, or even in Katie’s behaviour, which then puts you on edge during the daytime sequences. In fact there’s very little not to like about the first Paranormal Activity film in terms of how it is constructed. Many may not like how there’s no scary monster or how on subsequent viewings the scares are all completely ineffective because you know nothing bad is going to happen until the very end. But for people who don’t need there to be a scary monster, lots of blood, or even a clear sense of direction (so basically anyone who enjoys actual horror and not just jump scares), Paranormal Activity succeeds fantastically at what it sets out to do.
Being made on such a small budget, Paranormal Activity leaves a lot to the imagination. The demonic entity is never seen, and visual effects are restricted to just one or two shots in the entire film which even then are fleeting. Much of the film is simply Katie & Micah conversing with each other in largely improvised dialogue, or watching them react to the demons presence with the camera being stationary in a corner of the room much of the time. It’s one of the most barebones productions that mainstream Hollywood has ever produced, and yet because of this extreme low budget quality the film manages to be successfully scary, at least on a first viewing.
The film is completely unpredictable in where it will go next because you have so little information on what is happening, and just as you become comfortable that nothing scary will happen during the day you start to notice strange things happening in the background, or whilst characters are out of the room, or even in Katie’s behaviour, which then puts you on edge during the daytime sequences. In fact there’s very little not to like about the first Paranormal Activity film in terms of how it is constructed. Many may not like how there’s no scary monster or how on subsequent viewings the scares are all completely ineffective because you know nothing bad is going to happen until the very end. But for people who don’t need there to be a scary monster, lots of blood, or even a clear sense of direction (so basically anyone who enjoys actual horror and not just jump scares), Paranormal Activity succeeds fantastically at what it sets out to do.
The only major issue I have with the film is Micah’s character is such an asshole. He’s technically the main character of the film because he is, like the audience, the only one in the dark as to what is happening to Katie at the start of the film. It may be classic horror film trope to have a character that does almost everything in their power to make themselves a victim but usually these types of character appear in ensemble slasher flicks and are the first to be bumped off. Micah is quite literally one of four visible actors in the entire film and the audiences eyes much of the time. So to have a character that important be this bravado manbaby douchebag who refuses to listen to anything his girlfriend says, go out of his way to undermine her wishes, and do absolutely everything in his power to endanger the both of them after he has been specifically warned not to do everything he later goes on to do, can make the viewer downright angry because he is so unlikeable. It also calls into question as to why Katie doesn’t leave him, because although its established that the demon will go wherever she does, it is Micah that is aggravating the demon and therefore him that is causing it to lash out at both of them. This is even visually represented when the demon carves into Micah’s face in a photograph hanging on the wall. It just wants Micah gone because it doesn’t like him, and I personally totally agree with the demon on that matter. If I were Katie I wouldn’t even leave because I’m scared for his safety, I would leave because he’s a bad person and she doesn’t deserve to put up with his stupid shitty attitude!
On the whole though Paranormal Activity is a good horror film that, providing you’ve not watched it before, can have some effective scares in it because you can genuinely never tell what's going to happen next. Whilst its existence may have caused a massive influx of low budget and often really awful found footage films, including its own sequels, it cannot be understated how successful the original Paranormal Activity was both as a product, and as a horror film.
On the whole though Paranormal Activity is a good horror film that, providing you’ve not watched it before, can have some effective scares in it because you can genuinely never tell what's going to happen next. Whilst its existence may have caused a massive influx of low budget and often really awful found footage films, including its own sequels, it cannot be understated how successful the original Paranormal Activity was both as a product, and as a horror film.