Article by: Matt McQuaid
Contemporary horror movies have basically degenerated to high-budget snuff films. Films like the Saw franchise (Twisted Pictures) and Hostel (Next Entertainment, 2005) have long substituted actual scares with over-the-top gore and uncomfortable torture scenes that are more unsettling than they are frightening. Paranormal Activity (Blumhouse Productions 2007), a new mockumentary from first-time director Oren Peli, offers something different.
After Katie (Katie Fetherston) and Micah (Micah Sloat) begin to see strange things happening around their house, they decide to visit a psychic. The psychic tells them that Katie is being haunted by a demon, which inspires Micah to set up surveillance cameras in his bedroom to document what happens while they sleep. The resulting film is the footage documented by Micah’s cameras.
Peli’s film has already been compared to The Blair Witch Project (Haxan Films, 1999) a great deal, and while Blair Witch has certainly been an influence, the two films aren’t the same in every way. “I think the style is similar, but the story and most of the other elements are different…I know there are comparisons, but as far as the actual plot it’s quite different.”
Peli actually used hand-held cameras to film the movie. “The main thing is that it would have made sense for the premise of the movie. If it’s just a couple that lives at home and wants to do their own little surveillance project then that’s what they would use,” Peli said, adding, “They wouldn’t hire a film crew. So in order for the whole premise of the movie to work, that’s what we had to use.” The use of hand-held cameras also was an advantage considering Peli’s limited budget for the project. “I couldn’t afford any CGI and I didn’t really want to do much CGI. Also, all the special effects had to be very simple and practical and things that I can do on my own. Other things like not having a crew, not having a lighting person, not having a cinematographer, ended up being, pretty much making sense because in real life Mika would not have a cinematographer, he would just shoot things the way they are… it all kind of made sense and turned it into an advantage.”
Peli’s film was also written in a very unconventional way. Instead of having actors read from a script, the cast improvised dialogue from scene outlines. “For this kind of a movie to work, when it’s supposedly a documentary, one of the most important things to do is to create performances that are very natural so it doesn’t look like the actors are reading lines or memorizing lines,” Peli stated, adding, “I knew from the very beginning that once we had actors that can pull it off, which was not easy to find, we want to make sure that they can speak freely and naturally. So we give them a little bit of an idea of what the scene is and a little bit of guidelines, but by having them come up with their own dialogue, we were able to make sure that everything feels very natural in the setting and doesn’t feel like it’s some sort of a scripted, theatrical performance.”
Initial screenings of the movie have been very successful, and the film’s wide release is scheduled for Oct. 16 though it is currently showing in Boston. For the moment, Peli remains optimistic. “For now, I’m just happy that the fans are getting a chance to watch the movie and that they’re enjoying it.”
