Friday, September 25, 2009

Paranormal Activity Review

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If you stay tuned to the end of this review you'll have the fun experience of seeing me go off like a madman about the way Paramount and STYD ran what is quite possibly the most frustratingly mishandled screening of a film that I've ever seen. So that should be fun. But let's just jump right to the film proper first. There will not be any spoilers, so don't worry. I'll keep it clean.

There was a moment about halfway into Paranormal Activity where I realized my heart was pounding so hard and so fast that it - my heartbeat - was itself frightening me and took me out of the film. There is genuine tension in this thing - a real, slow build-up and release, build-up more and release, like a pipe letting off just a little bit of steam only for everything to grow thicker with it as it progresses and soon the whole room is dripping wet and vibrating and that humming sound is in the back of your head and you don't like it, you don't want it to be there, but you can't move and you can't see what could be done anyway. You just gotta sit there and take it.

And that was a nice feeling to get from a scary movie, for the first time in awhile. The feeling of helplessness; of wanting to look away but just dying inside to see something happen at the same time. The old push-pull that scary movies feed off of was here in spades. The film's relentless staging - during day we talk about what's going on, night comes and so does the scary stuff, day again, night again, over and over, always getting back to that same point-of-view shot of the camera at the foot of their bed signaling "Hey here comes so crazy shit again!"... it was exhausting, in a good way, in the same way it was supposed to be for the characters.

So the film has got its scares. It's worth seeing with an audience on a big screen - I feel as if there are details, things you might miss, watching it on a TV screen. Much more than most recent horror films this one depends so much on us listening to the silence, of our being quiet and still and leaning forward in our seats to see if we're hearing what we think our hearing... and the film made our rowdy midnight audience shut the hell up and do just that. And then came the BOO and everyone jumped and laughed like we were trained to do. But that's the good part of seeing a horror film with a real audience, finding a film that can actually play us like that, and this one did it pretty well.

I do have mixed feeling about the film overall though. I stand by all I just said, the film was fun (and managed to pull me in even though the situation of getting into the screening turned into a nightmare run by a bunch of jackasses... oh wait, I'm saving that for the end) and had some solid scares and long stretches of yes almost unbearable tension and it should be seen with a crowd to appreciate all of that. But! The film has it issues. The actors are far better than you expect them to be on an $11,000 production but there are a couple of moments, towards the end for me especially, where the seams reeeeeally begin to show in one person's performance. And after ten years of writing about Blair Witch I know people's mileage varies wildly with regards to it but this film, while a fun time had at the movies throwing your popcorn in the air, is no Blair Witch. The final fifteen minutes of BW is psyche-scarring madness and nothing in Paranormal Activity even approaches Heather screaming into those dark woods or the little hand-prints on the broken down walls.

So lower your expectations, I say. Expect an expert-twisting of your nerves. Expect lots of jumping and boos and giggles afterward. But don't expect this film to scar you. It ultimately doesn't have the weight to do that. But it will maybe make you pee yourself some and really, isn't that all we want from life in the end?

Alright, now for my rant about the screening situation.

As for you, Paramount and STYD - WHAT THE FUCK? You nearly ruined the entire experience with your bullshit mangling of getting the event done. I get that there was a line of hundreds of people waiting - see, I got there five hours early. FIVE HOURS. I watched them come and stand behind me. Me, I was about 10th in the line. I know how these free screenings always go, I was prepared. What I wasn't prepared for was being shuffled inside and at some point between being tenth in line for five hours and getting to the inside line I was suddenly about 50th in line. Wha? And then as you start letting everyone in you just throw your hands up in the air and just let everyone stampede into the theater at once. And then we get inside and literally the entire center of the theater is roped off for press. This is what the seats are like in theater normally at Sunshine:


And this is how they had it roped-off for this screening:


Aren't there these things called "press screenings"where the press gets to see movies on their own and not steal the entire theater from people who've been standing in line for five hours? Lord know how many people waiting in line behind us on the street got turned away so the douchebags playing on their blackberries I spied in the press section could pretend to give a shit about what was happening onscreen.

And then my friends and I find some seats and wait about half an hour, maybe longer, for the people running this show to slowly trickle people in, five at a time, to scavenge the few seats not blocked off. And finally they say they're starting the film but the dude from STYD has to give his little speech, blah blah this is the little movie that might, blah blah tweet your scream, blah blah he literally spelled out "t w e e t y o u r s c r e a m" for someone, and then he mentioned his website a thousand times, and then he introduced us King of the Douchebags, some suit from Paramount who just happened to be in town for a meeting and just happened to drive by the theater and well golly gee look at this manufactured chaos my lackeys have the theater surrounded with, all these people trying to get into this little movie that "me and Steven" (UGH) are bringing to you and aren't we doing an amazing thing here, us, bringing this movie to you? We're awesome! I have never been prouder of my boyfriend then when he yelled out, Douche!" at this moment. The guy sputtered but continued and told the same nonsense drivel we'd heard from the STYD guy about the film, and then we thought the movie might start, but NO now it was our oh so lucky chance to hear a taped message from Harry Knowles first, in which he told us the exact same things the two previous people had just told us only his head was two stories tall and his skin was splotchy tapioca coated in mange. UGH.

So that was all a blast! Got me right in the mood for a movie, it did! It took me about 20 to 30 minutes into the film to stop being so pissed off at the shittiness of these proceedings and just get sucked into the film. So I can't say that the botched way they handled the screening didn't totally effect the way I watched the movie. I don't know. I do know I'm not going to say something along the lines of, "Oh it could've been worse, I could've been one of the people who didn't get into the screening at all," because my ass showed up five hours early so I could not have been one of those people. I was prepared; Paramount was not. Bad job, dudes. Bad job.
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7 comments:

homeslaughter said...

You are right. I knew the Blair Witch, and sir, this is no Blair Witch. There are great scares and a new theme I would like to see explored further, what is the person you in bed with doing while you are sleeping. The big miss was in character and story development around the theme of new commitment. This could be remade a relationship comedy

Pax Romano said...

Can't wait to see this movie!

And kudos to your beau for yelling out "douche!" when it truly needed to be yelled out.

Wayne B said...

Sucks about the shitty management of the screening. My blood would be boiling if that were me. But at least you made the movie sound REALLY exciting.

Anonymous said...

I was lucky enough to see this film last night! And this is truly one of the scariest movies that I have ever seen. When I get really scared, my eyes welt up with water. I was like this almost through the entire film. I was severely traumatized by it. I couldn’t stop thinking about it after I left the theater! When I got home, I was still scared. I heard noises when I walked in and thought the worst… there was no rationale behind this! I am not being haunted! I felt silly, but still thought about it when going to sleep!
I don’t want to give anything away, but when something happens to Katie down the hallway in the latter part of the film – the audience erupted in applause! Applause!!! I was shocked. I think they clapped because the film works! It scared them!!! People around me where freaking out…just like me!
I saw it at the Castro in San Francisco…same mismanagement of the event!!! I got there about 11 due to my rehearsal of my show. I couldn’t believe how long the line was! Around the corner…a huge corner! Have been in huge lines at the Castro, but not this long! The line didn’t move until 11:45! At about 12:30, we moved up but didn’t even reach Castro Street (where the theater is). We were told by a girl with a clipboard that we might not get in! Then about 12:40, we were told we can get in! Got in a line and we got free popcorn and drinks!!! Nice surprise! But my theater was laid out the same way…all these Reserved signs in the center, but I saw that most were empty and then the organist (yes, live organ music) started playing “San Francisco, Open Your
Golden Gate” (the cue that the film was going to begin), I sat in one of the many open “Reserved” seats. Then a guy from Fear.net came on…and tried to give away prizes…people didn’t want to hear it…then 2 guys came on and tried to tell us to twitter and facebook our thoughts about the film…they were soundly driven off stage and finally the film began! Then Harry Knowles guy came on (boy, he does not look good – very scary)…This was 1 AM!!! A film that was supposed to start at 11:59 PM. So frustrating!!! But I was not sleepy once the nightmare began!
GO SEE "PARANORMAL ACTIVITY"!!!!!!

pvt. awesome said...

"..only his head was two stories tall and his skin was splotchy tapioca coated in mange. UGH."

HA! I scared my coworker an unexpectedly loud laugh when I read this!

gil mann said...

Landmark Sunshine, right? Sounds like my "look forward to this for months but fail to get my shit together and say 'ah, the hell with it' at the last minute" plan worked like a charm.

Plus I'm glad to have my expectations diminished a little. I can handle PA being sub-BWP but I wouldn't want to come to that conclusion mid-viewing, I don't think.

Friggin' hype, man. I'm still mad at "District 9" for being just really, really good. I'm convinced they pumped vaporized MDMA into the critics' screenings for that one.

Anonymous said...

ive seen it and i thought it was retarded