Sunday, October 04, 2009

The Paranormal Activity Project

And furthermore, I have lived through one of those incredibly canny midnight screenings in order to tell you that this is as terrifying as this, if not quite its equal in low-fi ingenuity and craft. I can't imagine that Paranormal Activity will work nearly as well without the room-thickening tension of being packed in a multiplex at the witching hour with a group of largely confused patrons, who all file in saying to the smuggest-looking member of their respective groups, "So, how did you hear about this? What is it?"



The theater where I saw it exhibited it simultaneously at midnight at its three largest screens, all of which stand consecutively to each other, so that 99 minutes later, a throng of stricken souls filed out amid shared jitters. I will admit to experiencing a dip in my estimation of my fellow man. It might be snobby, but I was not quite prepared for the sheer number of conversations I overheard that had fallen hook, line, and sinker for the already-hoary marketing device of "These are the real tapes! This really happened!" But nitpicking seems less important in the face of a few truly Richter-scale jolts. The worst for me: the leg. (Click here for Kris Tapley's take.)

I came home at 2am, keyed myself into my apartment, and my partner, expecting my arrival and knowing where I had been, had the sweet disposition but the extraordinarily bad luck to be standing in three-quarters shadow in the first doorway you see as you enter from the hallway of my building. I am not proud, but Reader, I shrieked like a mandrill and stumbled backward all the way into the elevator door.

P.S. Resist the urge to watch the trailer for this film, if at all possible. I gather from Kris's piece that a key bit of action is spoiled, and an incredibly starkers moment in the film would have been spoiled entirely for me if I'd known what to expect.

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4 Comments:

Blogger Glenn Dunks said...

That story about your partner is hilarious!

11:16 PM, October 04, 2009  
Blogger NicksFlickPicks said...

He is a very patient fellow, in more ways than this one.

11:18 PM, October 04, 2009  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This movie was based on a film from 2000 that was never released called 909 Experiment,and it was much better
look at the trailer here VERY COOL...

www.youtube.com/909experiment

10:47 AM, December 05, 2009  
Blogger Mark Luther said...

Paranormal Activity 2 Secrets

This horrifying secrets truly happened when they are filming the movie
and one of the staff actually died after he experienced what is on the
off-camera video clip

http://is.gd/in4b1

9:29 PM, December 07, 2010  

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