When was the last time you were truly scared by a movie?
Now, dear readers, I don’t mean horrified by violence. I don’t mean disgusted by blood and gore. I don’t mean momentarily unnerved by some cheap gag (boo!). I mean, when were you last scared by a movie?
Every generation has their Psycho: that movie theater experience where your mom/grandma/aunt/sister was so freaked out that it stayed with them for a long time after the credits rolled. For my grandmother, it was the aforementioned Psycho. For my mother, it was The Exorcist. For me, it was Paranormal Activity.
For an “indie” movie (when it’s distributed by Paramount, does it still qualify as indie, despite the fact that it cost 11K to make?), Paranormal Activity has received an incredible amount of hype. I remember a few months ago when I watched the trailer, I was not terribly impressed. It looked like a cross between The Blair Witch Project and Poltergeist, and the “DEMAND IT AT A THEATER NEAR YOU!” card at the end of the trailer was off-putting. Despite the niche appeal of viral movie campaigns (i.e., Snakes on a Plane), they don’t tend to link themselves up with movies that stand well on their own merits. I decided then that I’d wait for the DVD. But, slowly, buzz started to build from the horror film festival circuit, and I noticed that it was getting a limited release that included a theater in Washington, DC. Okay, I thought, what the hell. So, that Friday I dragged my 19-year-old brother to the movies.
Holy shit, guys.
The only thing you need to know about the plot is that this couple (the two attractive yuppies from the trailer) has no control over what’s happening to them. This thing takes over their lives and plays with them until it’s done. That in itself is unnerving, that loss of control and the sense of violation (and I’m waiting for the feminist theorists to write papers specifically on the girlfriend’s place in the predicament, as well), but that is not what scared me.
What scared me about Paranormal Activity is that it includes the single most effective use of psychology and conditioning that I’ve ever seen in a movie. EVER.
Let me lead off here by mentioning that I don’t get scared at movies. I laugh when the girl runs up the stairs to get away from the serial killer, or when some teenagers are getting it on and Jason shows up. So, naturally, the first time the couple set up their video camera to record the middle of the night goings-on, I rolled my eyes and snarked like everyone else in the theater. And the first time they caught the bedroom door moving on its own, I chuckled and thought “Ooh! Scarrrry!” Seriously, a door moving? I’m supposed to be freaked out?
Well, that was exactly where the director, Oren Peli, wanted me. I wasn’t supposed to take it seriously. Not yet. But, over the course of the movie, footage of the same angle (taken from atop a tripod set in the corner of the bedroom) would pop up, and little by little, I began to squirm in my seat. The technique is very similar to what you see in Michael Haneke’s movies (most notably Cache and Funny Games), where there are wide shots at a static angle for minutes at a time, and nothing necessarily happens…but the tension builds. Your eye searches the frame, not wanting to be caught off guard by whatever horrible thing is about to happen. But, for long stretches, nothing does.
Little things become bigger and bigger problems about halfway through the movie–during one of the overnight bedroom scenes, the girlfriend (seemingly possessed) rolls out of bed and crosses to the boyfriend’s side, standing over him. She stands there for hours. The time lapse on the camera speeds up, and the swaying most of us do without noticing when we stand in place speeds up, too. Watching that was nerve-wracking.
The penultimate and most violent scene in the movie occurs off-screen, and it’s during one of the overnight bedroom scenes. The scene starts in the bedroom, but the action is moved downstairs, and that’s when you hear what has to be unspeakable, unrepentant violence. You’re still watching that static angle in the bedroom because you have no choice, but now it’s quiet and you’re wondering if the movie is just going to end, like Blair Witch, or will something else happen? Time passes, and then you hear it. THUMP. THUMP. Something is coming up the stairs, and it’s fucking big. (By the way, whoever did the sound editing on this movie–genius.)
Well, I won’t spoil the end, but it was good. I realize that the ending was altered slightly to be “more Hollywood”, but I actually enjoyed it. The alternate, original endings which were shown at film festivals were good, and perhaps brainier and different in tone, but the ending I saw in the theater was fine. By that point I was freaked the fuck out, anyway, and watching the movie through my fingers like a 5-year-old.
What happened after the screen faded to black, however, sent me into fight or flight mode. The lights didn’t come back on. As a packed audience in this theater, we sat for maybe ten seconds before people started to panic. We were in total darkness. Obviously, the theater did that on purpose (perhaps this was a universal thing across theaters, to be part of the “experience”?), as right before the movie started a theater manager came in and told us to not just silence our phones, but turn them off. “If anyone even hears the buzz of a phone on vibrate or sees someone texting, you will be asked to leave and come back when you have more time to watch the movie”, he said. At the time I thought he was just being an unnecessary dick, but it was a ploy to make sure that when I wildly grabbed for my Iphone to navigate the dark theater, I would be shit out of luck, or at least have to wait the 30 (read: felt like infinity) seconds while my phone booted up.
After what felt like three or four minutes but was probably more like sixty seconds, the lights finally, mercifully came on. The entire audience attempted to rush out of the theater at once, and it was chaos. I saw teenage girls in tears, with mascara all over their faces. The macho guys sitting next to me who’d laughed as I did for the first half of the movie were rushing down the aisle faster than anyone else. Driving home that night, even with my brother in the car, I was almost too anxious to drive. We stopped halfway home to get Slurpees, which I haven’t had in years, but I needed something that felt comforting. My brother and I both slept in the living room with the lights on, I on the couch and he on an armchair.
You may laugh, dear readers, at my PTSD-riddled plight. That’s okay. Head on out to your nearest movie theater (preferably on a Friday night, when it’ll be packed) and check out Paranormal Activity for yourself. I dare you to sleep easy that night.
