![]() ![]() I went home and immediately watched it, with the sound way up and the room dark, and was almost instantly 500% more creeped out and impressed than I was at its initial release ten years ago. This was fire filmmaking, and although I wasn’t really a fan of found-footage horror, it made me think of Paranormal Activity. I left the theater really on edge and jittery, yet refreshed. (Okay, maybe I should write about this movie sometime soon.) I sat up real close and was captivated by every camera shake, every hint of movement, every whisper, twig crunch, every sarcastic quip from the dudes and every serious quip from Heather desperately trying to maintain control as the leader, and as a woman. Having not seen that one since I was a greasy teen and not yet as a greasy adult, I went alone and had one of the best theater experiences in recent memory. Seattle Cinerama hosted a 1999 film series, and The Blair Witch Project was one of the titles. Me: wise, older, with thousands of hours of movie-watching under my belt and thousands of dollars of student loan debt from my degree, and a taste for horror-the good, the bad, and the usually very ugly. But the film had set unreasonably high expectations in me, and I left with a solid “meh” and a shrug, not to re-watch for almost another decade. This is still an extremely unsettling scene. The one key scene I remember being spooked during was when Katie stands over Micah and watches him sleep for over an hour before walking outside and sitting on the back porch swing. The film’s marketing worked on me, and although I understood in my heart of hearts that Katie and Micah weren’t really documenting their haunting (albeit I’m guessing no one really thought that Katie and Micah were real people, really filming their encounter-and if you did sorry), one of the best parts of horror is leaning into the what if’s.Īll in all, my initial theatrical viewing of Paranormal Activity disappointed. From what I remember I was really hyped up for it-just beginning to earnestly dive into horror with a ravenous hunger and fresh into the first year of my film studies degree at Seattle University. In any case, Seattle was one of the initial lucky 13, and so ten years ago I saw it at the Regal theater downtown with a friend. Regardless of if the film was “real,” or even if it was as scary as opening night footage, the mere fact that it needed to be demanded, as if someone wasn’t letting you see it in the first place, made it at once irresistible to the masses. Trailers and promotional copy all ended with a call to action-do you want to see this in your city? Demand it be shown by going to this website. WHAT ARE THEY SEEING? Can we see it? Is it real? Is it that horrifying? The film’s extreme low budget and independent production meant there needed to be a demand before it opened in major cities. Normal people, like you and me, screaming, jumping, cowering, and throwing popcorn in what appears to be genuine fear. Watching the trailer, we can’t really see what’s happening in the movie, but we can see the audience. The official trailer, instead of only showing scenes from the film, uses night vision (similar to how scenes were shot in the actual movie) in order to record opening night audiences and their reactions. Two years after it premiered at Screamfest Horror Film Festival, Paranormal Activity was released in only 13 cities nationwide. The lead-up to Paranormal Activity’s release embraced the aughts and the exciting new land of social media by showing us…well, us. At the time, one couldn’t say one way or the other if this documentary was real, or just real scary.įast-forward to 2009 and perhaps the closest thing to a successor to The Blair Witch Project we’ve had so far: Paranormal Activity directed by Oren Peli. The Blair Witch Project was also one of the first films to use digital marketing in the form a very simple website, appearing to be crafted by the students in order to cement the authenticity of the mythos and the identity of the filmmakers. This technique was a pioneering example of viral film marketing as we know it today. Missing posters were plastered around cities where the film premiered, small towns printed fake news reports of the incident, and rumors ran rampant. The marketing for this film was meant to emphasize the uncertainty of whether or not these kids really went missing. In 1999, The Blair Witch Project focused on found video footage of three student filmmakers lost in the woods of Burkittsville, Maryland while on a mission to get to document stories of a mythological forest witch. Scarecrow Video employee and digital content writer Emalie Soderback makes her debut here at 10YA with our first of two looks at Paranormal Activity, putting focus onto its depiction of toxic masculinity, trauma made physical, and the terror of waiting. ![]()
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