Bumps in the night: Simon (and friends) review PARANORMAL ACTIVITY on DVD!
I used to mentally write the rules of movie dating. Partly because I thought it would make an intriguing foundation for a script, but mostly because I used to be a monumental slut, and I had a lot of practice to build up a pretty good knowledge of what worked.
For instance the first rule of a movie date is if your partner puts your hand on her breast a few minutes into "Godzilla", thus thoroughly ruining the viewing experience, do NOT go back and see it again. You dodged a bullet, and the boob was much better.
The greatest rule - and the one that will endure far beyond all others is that first dates are the perfect opportunity to go and see a horror film. Think about it- people's reactions to jumpy bits tell you all you need to know about them - too jumpy and they'll be pathetic, too happy and there's something just not quite right, and visibly aroused and you need to run to the hills, so what better way to chart the potential of a relationship than by taking your new interest to something adrenaline-fuelled and sinister?
Obviously, there is the minor secondary reason of terror-induced body contact, but that's just a bonus.
The other thing horror movies are good for are terror-competitions. Basically, you get some people you know, take them to the creepiest, or most notoriously haunted place you know of, whack on a particularly affecting horror flick and sit back and chuckle at the ensuing carnage.
This weekend, I thought this would be a good idea. And I thought "Paranormal Activity" would be the best choice of horror to take to my venue of choice - the cellar of a friend's Newcastle city centre shop whose cellar runs backwards and into the ground under a neighbouring cemetery.
To say the place is chilling is a fairly substantial understatement, and if like me you are unfortunate enough to be locked in, in the dark into the night (I was "rescued" at 4am, drunk and weepy), the atmosphere holds a particularly special place in your ice-gripped heart.
So, with a tiny portable (lower definition adds to the effects of atmospheric horror movies, some uncomfortable chairs and a rag-tag group of expendables I bolted the door- turned off the lights and pressed play on the DVD player. Here follows the account of what happened next...
The trailers gave us a chance to get our bearings somewhat and the first thing I heard someone mention was the smell. There is a particular stench that belongs under cities- like the unwashed underbelly of the beast, ripe with the fettid stench of hundreds of years of life above it, and death below. There is an even more particular smell attached to the ground beneath a cemetry when it is raining- a fact I wasn't aware of until shortly after I had sat down at the back of the room in the cellar, and one I am fairly unlikely to forget in a hurry.
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The PR company charged with promoting the DVD release had provided me with a survival kit of sorts, which in the cold darkness of the cellar seemed slightly ridiculous. No amount of post-viewing help sheets or soothing sounds on the accompanying MP3 was going to calm anyone's frayed nerves, and I wasn't about to brave the inevitable reaction of trying to "prank" any of the guests with the other scary sounds MP3. As funny as that could well have been.
But it seemed that someone wasn't going to let the occasion get the better of them- a close friend of mine, John, a burly out-doorsy type (he's a park ranger in real life), who uses me and my DVD collection as a library to satisfy his own newly-developed love of films, was evidently full of bravado. No fear would be his master- it was only a film, and we were only in a shop- how scary exactly could it be?
One hour later, I turned to John to gauge his reaction to find he was no longer there. Rather than any supernatural disappearance, he had fled to the sanctuary we had set up upstairs for anyone who didn't want to continue, to a cup of sugary tea and the welcoming arms of his girlfriend, who had steadfastly refused to set a foot in the cellar at all.
Of course, there was an actual film to enjoy in amongst all of the atmosphere, macho posturing and suspicious urine smells- and I was still charged with reviewing it.
The best thing I can say about "Paranormal Activity" is that it is one of the most invasive horror films I have ever seen- in normal viewing circumstances, i.e. alone or in small numbers at home, it is most profoundly affecting because it robs the viewer of the sanctity of their own safe havens. And the fact that they use the device of filming when the characters are asleep is just simplistic genius- how many people have come out in the aftermath of this film's release and said they haven't been able to sleep. I even said it myself, and I will again. Because those clever people behind the camera knew that their audiences would be sitting watching their film thinking about having to go to sleep later that night, and as they watched people leave screenings in the early days of post-production, and saw the dread on their faces that they would have to go to sleep at some point, they must have realised that they had unconditionally succeeded in scaring their targets perfectly.
The best horror films leave a scar- they are not all about the momentary scares of someone jumping out of a dark corner; they are rather about the lasting psychological effect they leave on their audiences. So "Event Horizon", a film widely criticised in certain circles, is one of the most harrowing films I have ever watched because I am still left with the image of Sam Neill with his eyes cut out (an effect made all the worse due to my adoration of him in "Jurassic Park" I'd wager).
Likewise, characters like Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers and Jason Voerhees will endure even the most horrifically made sequels because they play on essential fears (dreams, coitus-slayings and the warm glowing safety of a babysitter), and not gimmicks.
Unfortunately, the writing is clunky and problematic at times, a realisation that the cellar viewing robbed me at first, because it magnified the scary sections to such a degree. On second viewing I realised that there are far too many moments where we have to accept blindly why they would be filming, and also that the lead characters are on an intellectual par with the majority of slasher film morons. But then, these are the usual suspensions of belief that horror films offer, it is just the sometimes abysmal dialogue and plotting that makes them stand out a little too much at times.
The acting is great- far better than the mock-realism of "The Blair Witch Project" (though not on a par with the mockumentary realism of The Office and its ilk), and the plaudits must really go to Katie Featherston as Katie and Micah Sloat as Micah who could well have royally fudged their performances, in the same manner that first-time new-comers often can. Instead, they put in believable performances, especially Katie, and dont detract from the real star of the film- the atmosphere.
Neither performance is massively impressive in traditional terms, but its important to concentrate on the fact that this is pretty much a first time (apart from an appearance by Featherston in 2006's "Mutation"). If I wanted to be needlessly cruel, Id suggest that Micah Sloat has less chance of making anything else as successful in his future career, assuming he chooses to follow it through, than Katie Featherston, though even hers might well go the way of Heather Donahue.
A lot of criticism, especially from Stateside viewers, has centred on the fact that the film was over-hyped pre-release, with it being thrust rudely down their throats at every available opportunity. Thankfully, the marketing was less rude over here in Blighty, and I was able to form my own opinion of wanting to see it or not without the guiding hand of hype to push me. I can imagine that I the hype would have been a problem, as there are few examples from history where films that have been so overly-hyped have delivered, and the manner in which the "Paranormal Activity" teasers were cut may have suggested an entirely differently toned film. In reality, the movie is quite slow to build up, at odds with the suggestions of the marketers, but conversely making the final twenty five minutes all the more provocative.
In short, I loved the experience- it scared me nearly to death being in that cellar with an increasingly small band of fellow viewers, but I have grown out of the whole affair.
I have been given the opportunity to speak to most of the attendees in the days following the screening, and some interesting opinions came up. In the interest of dramatic tension I would love to be able to say here that several of the viewers have met terrible deaths, their faces contorted in terror, hands twisted into gnarled claws at some invisible foe- but they are all personable acquaintances of mine, and sadly, nothing that interesting happened. Not even a transferred haunting. Instead, hindsight (and subsequent full viewings in certain cases) helped develop real insights- one viewer found "Paranormal Activity" to be "surprisingly original" considering she has a preformed opinion that it was going to just be "Blair Witch indoors".
John, the brave soul who fled, offered his own opinion:
Id gone into it thinking it couldn't be that affecting, but it just goes to show you don't need a load of money and piles of blood and guts to make a properly scary film.
Indeed; and both quotes elucidate the film's success- it is original and it is unbelievably striking for such a tightly budgetted independent project. There is happily no reliance upon cheap scares (though the jumps that did come were magnified to a comical degree by the environment we were watching them in- I only wish we had filmed it).
The one lasting problem I personally have with "Paranormal Activity" is that there has already inevitably been call for a sequel (due supposedly this year), no matter how unnecessary it would be, and how bad the precedent is for this type of film. Who can forget the abysmal treatment of "The Blair Witch Project 2: Book of Shadows?"
Since the Hollywood Formula For Guaranteed Success (aherm) is to throw money at a project to try and stretch out the financial success of a franchise into its sequels, robbing a low-funded project of the characteristics that make it so successful (i.e. the measured and artistic nuances that replace highly costly effects and tech) can only leas to a Book of Shadows style flop. So, please, I implore you, DO NOT MAKE THAT SEQUEL!
There were few real spectral experiences in the cellar that night- apart perhaps from an overwhelming sense that there was an entirely other audience sitting behind me and that god-awful smell. The atmosphere as the film built to its conclusion became pregnant with fear, and more than once I saw the surviving four- Nathan, Heather, Richie and Chris cast wary glances about them into the dark. Thanks to director Oren Peli's uncanny ability to make black screen space (and their various hidden threats) deliciously scary, I could understand with those niggling fears explicitly.
We didnt all make it to the end. Needless to say it got all too much for some- but this is perhaps not an odd or indeed unprecedented occurence considering myself and one other member of my merry band, let's call him Nathan- largely because that's his name- had once bravely battled through two whole minutes of the original Ringu before we turned it off and put a light-hearted comedy on to ease the ghosts. In the middle of the day. That we lasted together until the final credits here was remarkable, but I have slept precious few minutes alone since.
If youre planning on viewing "Paranormal Activity" - by all means feel free. But dont fill yourself with bravado in the interest of an extra-dimensional journalistic piece by choice. If you have the option, don't even watch it at night.
"Paranormal Activity" is out now on DVD and Blu-Ray.