One Minutes Review: Paranormal Activity (3 out of 5)

At this point Paranormal Activity is not so much a film as a cultural artifact. Somehow into the critical mix comes the knowledge that this isn't just a horror film, but an artifact that was made for next to nothing and went to to not only make hundreds of millions but also beat all the big money makers at the box office, while in limited release no less. Forget whether it's good or not, $100,000 doesn't lie. Truth is, when we strip it all back down to basics the movie is okay.

It begins with a brilliant and unquestionably scary premise. A girl feels as though she is being followed by a paranormal presence, which has been in and out of her life since age 8. Her boyfriend, who she lives with, buys a video camera in order to hopefully capture something on tape so they can get a better understanding of it. In all the extensive research he does on the paranormal he certainly must have come across some numbers to suggest that the likelihood of catching the paranormal on tape exists somewhere in the one percentile, but no matter. They call up a psychic who specializes in ghosts and informs them that he can't help. His speciality is the dead but what he senses is a demon which, he helpfully explains, is not human but rather some evil force that follows people around just to mess with them. And so the nights go. The occurrences start out mild: footsteps in the hallway, doors moving slightly to and fro, lights flicking on and off, Katie getting out of bed and standing over Micah for hours without explanation.  

The psychic gives the couple the name of a demonologist to help them but Micah refuses the aid of the new doctor in one of the film's sly jabs at human nature: Micah's alpha male persona gets the best of him as he casts himself in the role of protector. Ain't no ghost going to mess with his girl. But the hauntings get worse: pictures are broken, loud noises cry out from the dark, footprints appear on the floor and Katie is dragged out of bed by an invisible force.

All of this is fine and dandy and by the time the hour and a half running time grinds to a halt, completely tiring and redundant. The majority of the hauntings occur in dark blue huges as the stationary camera films the couple's dark bedroom, a convenient clock in the bottom corner conveying the time. The setting is so repetitious that it ultimately negates the purpose. As soon as the lights go out and that blue eye-level shot appears we know that, sometime between 2:00am and 4:00am something spooky is going to go down and it's only a matter of time before writer/director Oren Peli stretches his prospects too thin. There's only so many times footsteps, flicked lights and absent-minded wanderings in the dark retain their power before enough is enough, leading up to a "shocking" ending which is, considering, about as predictable as it is unbelievable.

As a cultural cultural artifact, Paranormal Activity is fascinating. As a horror film, it's passable for a little while.

If They Don't Know, You Can't Tell 'Em

So there is going to be a sequel to Paranormal Activity. Why? Because studios are apparently deaf, dumb, blind and don't know a valuable lesson when it drops in their lap. I'm not going to report anything about the filmmakers or the plot details. You can read that here. What I want to say is: when will studios ever learn?

I just finished reading Variety editor-in-chief Peter Bart's book Boffa (which I don't recommend) and the moral of the entire book is basically that, throughout history, time and time again, a work will come along that no one believes in, will be made under the most dire of circumstances and become a huge cultural phenomenon. Bart refers to the likes of Cats, The Sound of Music, Baywatch, etc.

Although Bart's examples represent works that fly way beyond the confines of their medium and out into the realm of popular culture, we still see this kind of thing happen almost every year, just on a smaller scale.

Want proof? How about Paranormal Activity, Gran Torino, Juno, Slumdog Millionaire or even Avatar? I won't run through each in detail, but take Gran Torino as an example. The film opened in limited release for two weeks, gaining good reviews from the critics and positive word-of-mouth amongst viewers. It then opened on it's third week and plowed through the big studio phone-in job Bride Wars. Not only that but the film managed to stick around on the charts for weeks on end and ended up with a final gross of a little more than $148 million. Final gross for Bride Wars, which basically disappeared after it's first week: $59 million.

I like this example for two reasons. It shows that no matter how much money studios sink into stupid scripts tailored for big name stars like Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson to collected a nice paycheck, and no matter how many millions they sink into big advertising campaigns to make sure their desired teenage audience hit the theater on opening weekend, the best advertising is still positive word-of-mouth. They also prove that people value quality over quantity. That Clint Eastwood can still steal the box office in his 70s is all the proof one needs in seeing that classical filmmaking trends (i.e. quite, meaningful, entertaining character dramas) can still equate to big business

That also means that the best distribution method is still to open a film gradually, testing the markets for a response before opening wide. Nowadays studios throw all their efforts into the opening weekend, take the top spot and disappear almost completely the next week, when they start the same old routine over again. That's not the way it used to be. Jaws presents the ultimate example of how to distribute a blockbuster. Here's a film that opened gradually, built a reputation and stayed at the top all summer.

Avatar is doing that now too. It opened in the $70 millions on its first week (poor if you take the budget into consideration). Do you want to know why? Because studios stupidly advertised it as a high adrenaline sci-fi action flick, ultimately limiting its audience to fan boys. Todd Phillips once told the Toronto Sun that the reason The Hangover did so good is because the ads pulled no punches. They let the potential viewer see exactly what they were in for: a raunchy comedy.

So many film trailers these days try to mould the actual film itself into looking like something it is not; to dull the drama or the intelligence in favour of thrills and spectacles. How many times, after all, have you walked out of the multiplex either pleasantly surprised or disgusted by how little the film you saw was the one you expected to see?

Avatar was the same way. Not until the following weeks when word got around that it also involved a touching love story, a meaningful plot and strong characters did it gain it's momentum, as both males and females of all ages flocked to see it again and again as they did with Titanic 12 years ago.

Word-of-mouth saved the day for Avatar as it also did for Juno and Slumdog Millionaire, which it's director Danny Boyle feared would be released straight to video before winning the top award at the Toronto International Film Festival, breaking art house cinema attendance records, sneaking into mainstream theaters and ultimately taking the Academy Award for best picture.

Paranormal Activity is the same story. It was made for less than a million dollars, became a midnight movie sensation at festivals, opened in limited release for several weeks until opening wide and blowing the big studio players out of the water. It opened against the expected money maker Saw 6, which ended up with a total gross of just under $26 million. Final Paranormal Activity gross: just shy of $109 million. You do the math.

Why then are studios scared to invest money into properly marketing independent films that have the potential to be huge breakout hits like Juno or Slumdog, especially when history has proven time and again that it is possible for little films to generate big results? Who knows? Instead, year after year, the studios comb the vaults of popular culture to see what series they can get another installment out of or reboot or remake or whatever the buzz word is these days.

What the studios need to do is analyze all of these above mentioned films and see what they all have in common. Each film is an original work, based on an original concept. They don't rely on big stars (except Gran Torino) or the best special effects (except Avatar), but rather they focus on building a unique story that involves strong characters that are developed enough for an audience to care enough about to want to share in their journey. They are also about universal human needs, emotions and problems and therefore put drama at the forefront above all else (except for Paranormal Activity).

Above all, and maybe most important, they deliver a quality product. It doesn't matter how much Paranormal Activity grossed in comparison to it's budget, because it wasn't a fluke that people ran to see it. The reason people loved it was because it was something that so few contemporary horror films are anymore: genuinely scary. That's what it's ads promised, that's exactly what it delivered and that's exactly what people told their friends about it. Nothing more and nothing less. The Blair Witch Project was the same story.

It's unfortunate then that the studios, instead of searching for other original works of both quality and integrity, decide to go the lazy route and plan a sequel to a film that doesn't even begin to warrant one; not understanding that the very reason that film was such a smash is because it offered something, if not totally new, than at least rare these days. To try to duplicate that seems like a fruitless task in my opinion. Lightening, after all, rarely strikes the same spot twice.

The final question to ask is will it sell? Personally I'd like to think not. I'd like to believe that people can see when they are simply being exploited and will reject such efforts as they did with the Blair Witch sequel, which was almost unwatchable and also a disaster at the box office. Maybe that's the biggest shame in this whole story. Not only does Hollywood not learn from its successes, it doesn't learn from it's failures either.