For those hording toilet paper

Has it really been 6 years since Paranormal Activity?!?! Unbelievable. I remember seeing it in the theater. I thought it was okay, but no great shakes. Of the series, my favorite is probably the third one (the one with the “ghost sheet”). Caught it on fx tonight, and thought I would team it up with a later viewing of Ti West’s The Innkeepers. I noticed that there are over 1100 user reviews on the imdb for the first film. It has vocal supporters and detractors; rightfully so. Some genuinely find it scary; others, like me, were receptive to a few moments here and there. Noises in the night, a door moving on its own, keys falling to the floor, shrieking, the chandelier swaying back and forth, a creepy voice picked up on the EVP, the television turning on with static letting out a noise, and eventually Katie unknowingly getting out of bed and staring for hours at her boyfriend, Micah (pronounced Meekah); the movie is a series of paranormal events gradually building in intensity until the couple are damaged beyond repair. Katie would return, demonic possession having overtaken her, in future films; Micah, thankfully, doesn’t. Micah is a daytrader who gets a camera and audio recording equipment in the hopes of capturing something, as if a demon/ghost was a reward certain to provide financial dividends (or at least provide entertainment value for friends). It is all fun and games, even though his terrified girlfriend, Katie (studying to be a teacher), wishes it would all end (who can blame her?). Micach rarely takes anything that happens seriously. He has that damned camera always on because that moment he is waiting for could happen at any time. With The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity, there was that criticism that considers a camera always on in these movies a bit unrealistic and far-fetched…would a character really shoot that much with the camera? Heather in Blair Witch explains that the camera is all she had. Micah considers the camera an important tool in catching activity for study. Blair Witch never actually shows supernatural shenanigans on camera, while PA (and especially the sequels) takes what it did and expands upon the digital effects boom to show demonic activity right there before your eyes. I guess we will just have to accept that in order for the found footage to work, an always-on camera is to be expected…how could the genre work if the camera’s always off?

Micah is impossible. Not only does he continue to run the camera against Katie’s wishes, he borrows a Ouija board after her explicit instructions not to dare bring something like that in their home. He just can’t leave well enough alone. Even after she becomes incensed and angered at Micah’s antics, he cynically adheres to demands of “camera use” and pissing off the demon in their midst. He always reminds her of “what is recorded on tape” and she just wants a little peace without thinking of the paranormal activity.

By film’s end, Micah has gone too far. He just won’t shut the fuck up or shut off that fucking camera. Katie wears away before our eyes, in front of Micah’s camera, and he makes snide comments like (“Well, you’re the one that brought the thing into our house.”). She insists he get out of her face with the camera. She hardly sleeps, cries a lot, and has begun to suffer a nervous breakdown. Even at her worst, that camera is still on. When Katie is pulled from her bed, a bite on her back reveals the danger that Micah once took so lightly. Before the bite, Micah had the bright idea of leaving baby powder on the floor to get its footprints. Katie seems to have lost total control by Night #21, and Micah realizes his love is quite far gone (when she tells him she wants to stay home after just previously begged to leave, this is a sign that the demon has gained a foothold on her).

There’s one final scream, after Katie had stood over the bed to watch Micah sleep, and we see his body hurled right at the camera. Katie then (well, her body) is standing after Micah had be projectile-hurled across the room by whatever force has possessed her. She crawls up to the camera then her face twists into a wicked grin and growl. Fade to black with the accompanying “Micah was found, Katie’s whereabouts are unknown.” Here’s where the Blair Witch inspiration is at its peak. An eerie event happens out of camera’s reach. That scream brings Micah. He then screams. His body flies at us and soon the evil is revealed in full capacity within its host (this is one of the "rights" many felt "wronged" with Blair Witch which refused to show the evil on camera).

The next few films capitalize on the phenomenal success of Paranormal Activity and go for bigger demonic effects to push the envelope in regards to what can be accomplished in a found footage format. While PA4 is perhaps a final thud that the franchise needed to stop the madness (having three of these things is about right), Paranormal Activity seems to excite by keeping things simple. I think, though, that you can go to a well even after it’s dry as a bone, and the results are an audience that starves. PA4 was such an example. Paranormal Activity was very much like Blair Witch in that it came out at just the right moment; timing is everything, and PA certainly benefited from good hype and an ad campaign that sat asses in theater seats. I recently saw that same style of marketing with Insidious Chapter 2. It is the old William Castle advertising trick…pull the audience in even if your film isn’t as Scary As Hell as Peter Travers from the Rolling Stone mag or from internet websites might lead you to believe.