Posts tagged Reviews

It’s Saturday folks, the weather outside is frightful so why not get inside a theater and be scared?!!!! Loyal ICANNOTBLOG(ICB) reader and movie buff Tifa P. weighs in on Paranormal Activity. Check it out:

by Tifa P.

We live in a time where the jaded youth and seen it all adults are no longer impressed by the ghost and Goblins, of years past. Hollywood has decided that in order for a movie to have any shock value or scare the pants off the audience; it must have a big budget and be filled with gore. Well Hollywood skeptics were slapped in the faces, by writer-director Oren Peli’s beyond genius film “Paranormal Activity“.

Unlike the Horror/Thriller films that graces the screens in theaters worldwide; “Paranormal Activity” did not need a vast budget to be a success. “Paranormal Activity” monopolizes on the viewers’ childhood paranoia of what happens in dark, while in that state of blissful ignorant we call “sleep”, to aide in scaring the pants off you. The audience is fixed in that state of what is going to happen next, as chills tap dance up and down your back and u find yourself leaned over in with eyes transfixed on the nothingness that is there waiting for the fear to take over. Then bam it happens and u find yourself screaming or jumping at the sounds of screams that surround you. This fear follows you to the sanctuary of your home, which now feels like a death trap where evil lurks in every creak of the floor board. Peli managed to insight this fear with a film that was created two years ago on a mere budget of $15,000.

Peli, original a video-game designer, had cast that’s grand total consisted of six actors: Katie Featherston, Micah Sloat, Mark Fredrichs, Amber Armstrong and Ashley Palmer. “Paranormal Activity” not only follows in the footsteps of “The Blair Witch Project”, with camera work that appears to be done by the actors themselves giving you only glimpses into the events taking place, creating a high anxiety state; but also by using viral marketing campaign to promote the movie. They held town screening at college campus, all which were sold-out. Paramount Pictures created a sense of exclusivity by only having the film play only midnight shows at 33 theaters, when it premiered Friday. ParanormalMovie.com display clips of the movie and images of the audience’s reactions to the film itself, then a button to demand that they show the film in theaters near you if it is not already.

This brilliant marketing plan along with its subtly effects that have terrified people into sleeping with the lights on while dishing to their friends about how “astonishingly scary” this film is, has lead it to a profit of:  “$7 million weekend in 159 theaters is more than triple the previous record for a film in such few theaters” (http://www.getthebigpicture.net/blog). The moral of the story is if you want to support Hollywood making movies that contain more quality rather than just a ridiculous budget, which could be given to the unfortunate, and develop an ulcer or suffer from an acute heart attack due to being horrified, go see “Paranormal Activity”; preferable with a jumping friend for added effect.

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