Welcome back, goblins and ghouls, to the fourth annual installment of SpookyJawn! Each October, our love of horror fully rises from its slumber and takes over the MovieJawn website for all things spooky! This year, we are looking at ghosts, goblins, ghouls, goths, and grotesqueries, week by week they will march over the falling leaves to leave you with chills, frights, and spooky delights! Read all of the articles here!

by Emily Maesar, Associate Editor, TVJawn

In 1999, when The Blair Witch Project was released, the marketing surrounding it was unparalleled by any horror film of the era—especially within the subgenre of “found footage.” It was widely believed to be real, and it was, perhaps, one of the last times anyone could successfully market a horror film in this way. Because the actors were sequestered, audiences really believed they’d all gone missing, and that the footage was recovered. Obviously, there were plenty of naysayers, but it was before the new millennium and the movie culture of today didn’t exist. The internet truly does taketh away. 

The closest we’ve come to a movie marketing blitz like The Blair Witch Project came in 2009, with Paranormal Activity. It was a film that had buzz surrounding it for nearly two years before its wide release, but the general public is not the same as the film obsessed one. Plus, the internet just wasn’t the same. Social media was a baby, after all—not the monstrosity it is today. Thus, the secret of the film's existence became its own discovery. I know my first interaction with the film was seeing the night vision audience reaction trailers, which was the first time I really remember those being used (though I’m certain they weren’t the first).

However, the film’s original cut was not the one Oren Peli screened at its first film festival: ScreamFest in 2007. Like The Blair Witch Project before it, Paranormal Activity was shot without an actual script. It was shot with the idea of what would happen and the actors were left to improv their dialogue within each actual scene. It was shot in a single week and edited on the spot. When it premiered at ScreamFest it impressed some of the right people, landing Peli an agent at CAA. 

Eventually Jason Blum, who was working as Miramax’s Senior Executive at the time, saw it and was really taken by the film. He recut it with Peli and it made its way to Dreamworks, who had plans to have Peli reshoot the entire film—like the original cut was a proof of concept. It was then that Jason Blum came to the rescue, when he and Peli agreed to the remake idea with the stipulation that they screen the original to see how it played. And the rest, as you might imagine, is history. 

Paranormal Activity is about a couple, Katie (Katie Featherston) and Micah (Micah Sloat), who decide to get a handheld video camera to document the weird occurrences that have been happening, specifically to Katie, at night. Katie is certain that it’s the evil presence that she remembers from her childhood, but Micah is generally less convinced of the supernatural. After a few nights of questionable events in their home, they bring in a few experts to investigate—including a psychic, Dr. Fredrichs.

The good doctor informs them that he thinks it's actually a demon, not a ghost. He suggests not speaking to it without a demonologist present, which Micah immediately ignores, bringing a ouija board into their home. Things begin is escalate when they put baby powder on the ground and there are footprints in it (non-human, but I do feel like anything would be scary), the couple find a burnt photo of Katie as a child in their attic, and one night Katie is dragged out of their bedroom and left with a bite mark on her neck. The film then ends with the presumed death of Micah at the hands of a possessed Katie.

The ending of the original film leads nicely to the next three films in the main plotline of the series, which came out one-a-year from 2010 to 2012. The second film follows Katie’s sister, Kristi, who is also being haunted in adulthood. The third film is a prequel about the haunting the girls experienced as children—which also gives the demonic spirit a name: Tobi. And the final film in the main plotline is about a new family who gets a deeply weird neighbor—a woman named Katie. A few of the other films do reference Katie and Kristi, but are largely their own deal.

The other films also made significantly less money against their budgets than the original four films in the franchise. In fact, no other film in the franchise had a bigger impact on culture than the original, with the exception (monetarily and in my heart) of the prequel film: Paranormal Activity 3. Honestly, there’s no accounting for the fear and creativity of the camera on the oscillating fan.

Made for less than $300,000, Paranormal Activity ended up making a crisp $194 million, and with anniversary screenings that number is sure to get even higher. People went absolutely bananas for this film, and it was pretty well received, critically. Roger Ebert gave it 3.5 stars, out of his traditional 4, and called it “an ingenious little horror film.” Entertainment Weekly said it, “scrapes away 30 years of encrusted nightmare clichés,” a quote I find comical given what kinds of wannabe films came after (similar to Saw, five years earlier). It set a trend, there’s no doubt about it. There were the critical naysayers, of course. It was called “cheap” both in terms of the jump scares and the way it was shot. It was compared to a YouTube prank, just with a bit of marketing to make it go viral—which is not wrong, given the way YouTube filmmaking looks today. However, in retrospect, that point doesn’t feel quite like the burn the review was trying to make it out to be.

Other than filming the audience for trailers later, one of the biggest things that Paranormal Activity did at the beginning of its marketing campaign was what I like to lovingly call “The Facebook.” On September 25th, 2009, the film (in its re-edited, but not reshot, form) was screened in twelve college towns around the United States, selling out all but one due to a football game. After, the film became the first major film to use the “request a screening” marking technique on their website. And it worked. Because, like The Facebook before it, when some college kids get to do or see something… everybody else wants to be involved. Thus, Paranormal Activity became the 2000s major case of word-of-mouth film marketing. It opened wider and wider until it was inescapable.

Despite the original film’s success, Oren Peli never directed another entry in the franchise. He produced all of them, with his actual involvement lessening as time went on, but he has only made one other film since his breakthrough hit. Peli, burnt out from directing the film and trying to get it out there for a solid two years, was ready to hand the reins over. Saw VI director, Kevin Greutert, was set to take over for the second film, but Twisted Pictures and Lionsgate (who produce and distribute the Saw films) pulled him using his contract to direct Saw 3D. 

Brian De Palma and Akiva Goldsman (insane choices, but okay!) met with Jason Blum to discuss potentially directing the sequel. However, work in Hollywood moves pretty fast and Tod Williams ended up being the ultimate choice for the second film. And, despite the Saw franchise messing about with Paranormal Activity, when James Wan and Leigh Whannell stepped away from Saw, Peli ended up working with them to develop and produce their next major franchise: Insidious. 

The legacy of Paranormal Activity, like Saw before it, is one of sequels, genre definitions, and copycats—among other things. The franchise itself has six additional films of both the direct sequel and spin-off variety. And, like The Blair Witch Project before it, there was a huge boom in found footage films after its success, particularly with ghosts or demons. Things like the V/H/S franchise were able to hit as hard as they did because Paranormal Activity was so all consuming in the horror genre. 

Considering how non-existent the most recent film was, due to COVID-19 and it being put directly on streaming, it seems unlikely that the franchise will ever be the blockbuster hit it once was. However, that doesn’t rule out a potential remake or requel (remake and sequel rolled into one) and what a change to the series might do in the future. Ultimately, Paranormal Activity is one for the books and it stands as a modern horror movie classic.