I don't claim to know shit about horror films. They don't really get to me anymore and the genre seems replete with cheap shock tactics that aren't scary. It's not scary to see someone's ribcage get torn out and used as a xylophone, it's just icky. If it was scary, being a surgeon would be the #1 occupation for horror junkies, closely followed by "shut-in amateur ghost hunter". Maybe I haven't been looking in the right places for good horror films and my resistance is weak, but Paranormal Activity has burrowed deep under my skin and established colonies with their own respectable economy and morally gray conflicts with the natives.
The subject of a marketing carpetbomb, Paranormal Activity was shot for $15,000 and has been kicked around to film festivals for two years, slowly building a reputation until it found its way into the hands of Steven Spielberg and a handful of Dreamworks executives.
THIS IS THE PLOT: There's something in Micah and Katie's home. It's been following Katie since she was a girl, and now it's really kicking up a fucking fuss, knocking on doors and tripping down the stairs.
Micah buys a video camera to record the strange goings-on, especially at night when strange things occur as they sleep.
They come to realize that the strange creature is a demon, a malevolent creature whose motivations are never completely clear (which makes it all the more frightening). Everyone they talk to is useless, every precaution they take is laughed at by the demon and they can't even run away from it. That's a feeling I associate with "the walls are closing in" and is rarely implemented well in horror films.
But for all the things the film does right, and it does just about everything right, the key is that it's patient. We spend a lot of time in the company of the characters, getting a feel for the house, their relationship and Katie's history with this supernatural happening. A horror film this well-paced could have all kinds of other flaws and I would give it a pass just for having the gaul to actually build tension. But, as I said, Paranormal Activity does just about everything right.
Horror films are especially subject to backlash because you have so many macho dickwagon trains saying "Pfft, it wasn't scary (FOOTBALL FOOTBALL)". People don't like to admit that a series of moving images and accompanying sounds managed to change their body chemistry, so I'll be the first to say it: it got under my skin. I got dropped off at my house after I saw the film and I sat down at my desk. I heard my cat scratching at my sliding-glass window, and I stood up to let her in. When I got to the door, she had climbed up the screen window to eye-level and was staring at me LIKE A FUCKING DEMON DOES. Needless to say, my heart swelled to the size of a canned ham (does that sound like tough-guy dialogue?) and I started pouring anything I could find into my eyes to get them to stop dilating.
Too many reviews have given away too many of the great scares, and so I won't go into detail here. The only thing I will say is that this film takes advantage of my newly published book Throw Your Composer in a Dumpster and Hire a Sound Team Free of Track Marks: Why You'll Never Make it in Hollywood if You Bought This Book and designed a soundscape free of music and full of creepy noises.
I won't say it's virtuoso filmmaking, I won't say I'll run out and see it again and I won't say you're missing out big time if you haven't seen it. I will say it's a goddamn great horror film, and if that's your cup of tea then Paranormal Activity is a name-brand product served with fresh crumpets.
8/10
5 comments:
I am often very opinionated when is comes to horror films. In social situations where people ask why I am yet to see the Saw or Hostel films, I tell them that "stuff like that is testing your stomach, rather than your mind." My opposition, of course, feels differently. They believe that they are learning something from Saw - that it is quality horror with a mind and a heart. Har har.
Well, to each their own. However, my dear old friend Burn, I think we'd both be in agreement that the ribcage-xylophone nonsense (while typically icky and silly) is dismal laws are forgiven, forgotten, and more than just agreeable under the watchful guidance of one David Cronenberg. In the world of horrow cinema, if it weren't for him, I don't know how I'd keep my head from, well, exploding.
Of course anything can be done well and no one (seriously, no one) makes horror films as good as Cronenberg. Few people make films as good as Cronenberg PERIOD. Actually, one of my favorite quotes about horror comes from Cronenberg:
"I think of horror films as art, as films of confrontations. Films that make you confront aspects of your own life that are difficult to face. Just because you're making a horror film doesn't mean you can't make an artful film."
In any case, I don't think I know anyone who values the Saw films as anything but snuff. I vowed that I wasn't going to go out of my way to see it, but if anyone asked or invited me to see Saw VI I WOULD go. I've seen all of them (except Saw 3, and I have no intention of digging through the Saw archives).
The horror genre is getting less lazy, I think. We're overdue for some..."fresh blood". :DDD
Following the fantasy spell (no pun intended) that saw its spark and probable peak with the Lord of the Rings trilogy, I wouldn't necessarily mind more Saw-like horror films so long as the next movement in cinema (that I hope doesn't outstay it's welcome) is the return of brilliant science-fiction pictures.
Thanks to District 9, Moon, Pandorum (which I highly recommend - though it may be viewed as intellectually deficient, in comparison to the others on this list) and Star Trek, I am hopeful.
I had hoped to see Pandorum, but never got the chance. I thought it looked proper creepy and I'm a big Ben Foster fan, starting with his role as Eli in Freaks and Geeks.
But you're right, this has been a brilliant year for sci-fi. I really hope Duncan Jones really starts kicking ass and taking names in the sci-fi genre. Mute looks fucking awesome and it's a damn shame he is having a hard time getting financing.
But if the Star Trek franchise continues to be successful commercially and artistically, I have high hopes that sci-fi will become big again, ESPECIALLY with the smash success of District 9.
Ben Foster is exactly what got me to that movie. I went in only having seen the trailer once. I was surprised in all the right kind of ways. It got me thinking that a good science fiction film will always warrant a sequel or spin-off. Whether or not the film gets it... well, hopefully the studio will know what's best. In this case, let's leave Pandorum at one. And leave the rest to the imagination.
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