Paranormal Activities, a new scary movie, shakes up the box offices after making $19,617,650 in its opening weekend, an unexpected outcome.
Artwork by Mia Nogueira
Just in time for the Halloween season, the ghostly horror flick Paranormal Activity premiered in theatres on Friday, October 9th, 2009. The indie spooker was originally produced in 2007 by the Israeli movie-maker Oren Peli, and became a blockbuster this year after an online voting poll nominated the movie to be featured on the big screen.
The movie is very basic and easy to follow. A young couple moves into a house and are constantly disturbed by some sort of paranormal being. Katie, played by newcomer Katie Featherson, admits to her boyfriend that the “being” has actually haunted her since she was eight years old. Micah, also played by a newcomer, Micah Sloat, is Katie’s boyfriend and decides to do some personal investigation on this haunting. He buys a camera and fancy ESP detecting equipment in hopes that this “being” is caught on camera. After a few horrifying nights with this being, the desperate couple consults an exorcist who identifies the spirit as a demon (duh!). The exorcist also notifies Katie that the demon was the same being that had been haunting Katie during her childhood, and nothing could be done to remove the demon from her everyday life. He warned the couple that provoking the demon could make the haunting worse, but of course the couple decided to ignore the warning and continue with their homemade investigation.
The most entertaining parts about the movie were the audience and their fantastic shrieks and elaborate vocabulary of curse words, as well as the random half-baked “activities” that happened to the couple. The demon opened and closed doors, made weird hauling noises, moved the blanket on their bed, it even dragged Katie out of her slumber into the hallway by her foot, but all I could care about was how many times the vulgarities were being thrown around and if the lady sitting next to me was going to have a heart attack the next time the demon appeared. But honesty, the audience is what made the movie scary. Half of the time that I screamed or flinched was because the lady next to me was jumping out of her seat. “Uh the door moved! Oh my Gosh the door moved!” or “Oh no, girl, don’t go in there,” were some of the comments she screamed into my ear. The acting was even worse; the over exaggerated cries, and the fake look of terror on Katie’s face made me and my fellow movie goers die of laughter, not of terror. The only truly terrifying scene was the final one where the unexpected happened! I won’t spoil the end, but I will promise that the final scene will make you jump a few feet in the air.
The movie was suspenseful though, and even if it wasn’t the best horror flick of the season, it did leave me at the edge of my seat. Every time something scary was supposed to happen, a soft sound would play in the background and you knew then that you had to get ready. The demon possessed Katie a few times and made her stand up during her sleep for a couple of hours. While she stood up she was starring at Micah the whole time. Can you imagine that? Having your girlfriend next to your bed starring at your sleeping body completely unconscious? And the times where she woke up possessed again, those made me scoot back into my seat a little bit because she really did look just plain evil.
The movie, in my opinion, was a good try on a horror movie, but obviously not up to par. Instead of being mortified in my seat I was pleasantly comfortable, and instead of being afraid of turning the light off at night, I was excited to go to sleep since I was exhausted from trying to keep awake at the horrible movie on which I had just wasted my money!
One thing I did have to consider was the budget of the movie. According to The New York Times, the producers only had $11,000 dollars to spend on the movie. That’s not even one eighth of what the big movie producers spend on props or their equipment. I can’t expect a knockout movie with $11,000 dollars; it’s just not possible to make an amazing and believable movie on Windows Movie Maker. So if $10 isn’t too much money to spare, sure go see Paranormal Activities, then you’ll be able to join in on the jokes we all made on how horrible it was. If you don’t go, don’t worry, you really won’t be missing out on anything great. And remember the movie is rated “R,” for rough to watch.
