Paranormal Activity - New Horror Movie is the Next Blair Witch

Kholi said:
Man... I have to see this movie. The sheet gag made my eyes water with terror.
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"There are footsteps coming in the bedroom but none going out" got me, really simple stuff. Mystery is terror when used correctly, it makes your imagnation run wild with all sorts of what if's and the score, aniticipation of a beating score, pacing, etc, turn the sound off and it will probably look like a typical home movie. The score, mystery, anticipation is the key to any good horror flick (with a few other tricks).

I'm really surprised more people aren't following this movie here, it is going to be the highest grossing indie movie ever made under $50k, it's budget was $15k (Blair Witch budget was around $60k). Ratio wise budget vs gross it's going to smoke Blair Witch.

I just started asking some people involved with it more about it, this is the movie I want to learn everything from marketing wise.
 
After reading this thread today I decided to go see this tonight. I was intrigued to see how they pulled off all the publicity for a film that only cost 15k to make and I was actually excited to see it.

After all the hype I ended up apologizing to the four friends I dragged to the theatre with me.

The trailer for this movie is marketing genius, they loaded a bunch of teenagers in the theatre and taped their reactions. Actually being in the theatre and witnessing this first hand was very annoying (people were screaming when it simply cut to them laying in bed). Being frightened by this film would require having the depth of intellect that the two characters seem to have.

The mentalities that the actors bring to their roles do not seem right, specifically the boyfriend who is supposed to be a successful day trader (judging by their home) but has the vocabulary of a 15yr old. Another thing that bothered me was the location. Why did they have two extra rooms, one of which had a childs stuffed animal in it? This was never explained. The house really belongs to the writer/director, who most likely does have kids (either a terrible location scout or flat out lazy).

It's obvious when watching this that hardly any of that 15k was put into production and that most went into promotion. It kind of reminds me of a one of those marketing scams, you know when they say "send me $10 and I'll send you a video on how to make a million" and what you get in the mail is a video telling you to sell people videos telling them to sell videos on how to make a milion. That's pretty much what they did with this.

Sorry to be such a downer, I'm just trying to save your valuable time and money (which you will know you have lost when you see the ending).

They advertise that Spielberg wasn't able to finish watching it. I seriously doubt it had anything to do with it being scary.
:violin:
 
pattern.against.user said:
They advertise that Spielberg wasn't able to finish watching it. I seriously doubt it had anything to do with it being scary.
:violin:
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Spielberg should come out and say that his reaction to the film was misinterpreted if he really wasn't scared. I'm sure many racing out to see it are going on the merit of that statement alone.

I'm sure he is well aware of his association to the publicity right now.
 
Looks like another big weekend for PA, according to Variety…

Paramount's spooky phenom "Paranormal Activity" placed exceptionally high in this weekend's frame with record-breaking numbers, earning $7.1 million at 160, the highest weekend grosser at 200 locations or less. Pic beat previous record-holder "Platoon," which earned $3.7 million at 174 in 1987.


"Paranormal" grossed the frame's highest per screen average of $44,163, edging out Sony Pictures Classics' launch of "An Education" with $162,381 at 4, earning $40,595 per screen.
 
stephenmick said:
Looks like another big weekend for PA, according to Variety…

Paramount's spooky phenom "Paranormal Activity" placed exceptionally high in this weekend's frame with record-breaking numbers, earning $7.1 million at 160, the highest weekend grosser at 200 locations or less. Pic beat previous record-holder "Platoon," which earned $3.7 million at 174 in 1987.


"Paranormal" grossed the frame's highest per screen average of $44,163, edging out Sony Pictures Classics' launch of "An Education" with $162,381 at 4, earning $40,595 per screen.
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Holy smokes! It CRUSHED the previous 200 screen record. The studio but a big number on it at $5.5M and thought that was high... LOL :) this is awesome! I love seeing little underdog indie movies CRUSH previous records, and Oliver Stones record :)

Do you guys realize how important this is for indies? Now more studios / distributors / investors will start taking notice of the little guys.
 
ChipG said:
Holy smokes! It CRUSHED the previous 200 screen record. The studio but a big number on it at $5.5M and thought that was high... LOL :) this is awesome! I love seeing little underdog indie movies CRUSH previous records, and Oliver Stones record :)

Do you guys realize how important this is for indies? Now more studios / distributors / investors will start taking notice of the little guys.
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What I really hope is that this will make them try releasing a lot of other movies like this. Advertising costs have completely ruined the industry. I like this "Demand it" model a lot more than the typical "plaster it on every viewable surface on Earth until they have no choice but to obey."

I would hope that the "demand it" tact would lead to better, riskier films, because films would kind of organically seek out the audience suited to them. Given the initial advertising budget(is that was true), this film would have been an enormous success had it made $1 million.
 
pattern.against.user said:
Sorry to be such a downer, I'm just trying to save your valuable time and money (which you will know you have lost when you see the ending).
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That's a bold statement, since it's pretty obvious that theres plenty of people out there enjoying the low budget movie about an invisible demon terrorizing a couple for having too many bedrooms :cool:
 
This is the director's first feature film! He has been a software programmer for a while, and decided to go for it, wow. Kudos for him, he had the balls.
 
dadoboy said:
This is the director's first feature film! He has been a software programmer for a while, and decided to go for it, wow. Kudos for him, he had the balls.
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Not only that he didn't even have a script for it, just a basic story outline of what was going to happen in each scene, no dialog for the actors, it was all improvised on set.
 
ChipG said:
Not only that he didn't even have a script for it, just a basic story outline of what was going to happen in each scene, no dialog for the actors, it was all improvised on set.
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But is it any good? Sales figures don't do it for me. Teenagers will flock to see something like this, good or bad.

I want to read some more reviews from the members here.

I hope it's great!

Mark, did you catch it?
 
Nah, I have a shoot coming up next weekend, so will be swamped prepping for that. But after that, I am planning on catching it in the city with SprocketBoy.
 
Michael Anthony Horrigan said:
But is it any good? Sales figures don't do it for me. Teenagers will flock to see something like this, good or bad.

I want to read some more reviews from the members here.

I hope it's great!

Mark, did you catch it?
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Well here's the thing, in my opinnion it doesn't really matter because a good movie is soooo subjective, I'd have to say a big YES for it to be doing these kinds of numbers, dunno if I will like it but it is going to get my $8 and that's what it is all about. It's all about the numbers man, this $15k movie has made over $8M as of today and it hasn't even opened on a wide release, that is coming Oct 16. Alot can be learned from PA.

I have been saying for a while that the teen / college market is the best market to break into for a cheap indie production that has the biggest upside.
 
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ChipG said:
Well here's the thing, in my opinnion it doesn't really matter because a good movie is soooo subjective, I'd have to say a big YES for it to be doing these kinds of numbers, dunno if I will like it but it is going to get my $8 and that's what it is all about. It's all about the numbers man, this $15k movie has made over $8M as of today and it hasn't even opened on a wide release, that is coming Oct 16. Alot can be learned from PA.

I have been saying for a while that the teen / college market is the best market to break into for a cheap indie production that has the biggest upside.
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That's all fine but I'm still not going to hand over $10 bucks for a shitty movie. I don't care who made it. :)

Especially one that's geared for teens.

If I talk to a few people in my age bracket that enjoy it then I'll gladly hand over my money. :)

Otherwise it's a rental.
 
This is a movie some will be really scared by, and some (see above) will absolutely hate.

Me? It made the hair on my neck stand up a few times, and that's really all I wanted from a movie like this. Is it a great movie? No. But I like the way the pacing starts slow (almost painfully so) and the tension builds to the end. Some of the story elements didn't quite work for me, but they seemed to be choices driven by budget, which I completely understand.

PA isn't breaking any real "new" ground, but I'd rather pay ten bucks for a few genuinely creepy moments than for 90 minutes of torture porn.

I read somewhere that, after watching a screener DVD, Spielberg returned to the Dreamworks offices the next day with the DVD in a bag. He said he thought the DVD was haunted, saying that he found the doors to his bedroom locked from the inside and needed a locksmith to get in.

It was probably just George Lucas rummaging through his bedside garbage trying to find story ideas.




And if you're going to see this… DO NOT WATCH THE TRAILER!
 
Geez, all this reminisce advertising on the radio stations is turning me off and other people. All the radio DJ's are instructed to say they refuse to see it because it is too scary. Ha ha ha!

Same marketing people that poo pooed up someting they tried to market to NASCAR country. Speaking down to your audience....

College students want to discover their own entertainment, not hear about it from advertsing.

I think the distrubutor would do better by leaving it alone.

Sorry for the rant.
 
Caught this last night... didn't really know anything about it, but all of my girlfriends work friends were apparently raving about it. She called me up last night saying she wanted to see it... I was not interested at all, but she wasn't having it ;)

I did a quick look on IMDB to see the ratings it's been getting, and I also scrolled down to the first review, but only read the title (I like to know as little as possible about movies before I see them). Sounded interesting and I was more excited about seeing it.

I'm not going to give out any spoilers or even a plot synopsis, but I will say it is very much like the next Blair Witch Project. If you enjoyed that movie, you'll love this one too.

VERY creepy at times, and except for the entire audience screaming and jabbering through the entire film, I really enjoyed it.

Regarding the "aimed for teens" statement in a previous post, I thought the exact same thing. I've just heard radio ads about this movie, and it did indeed seem to be aimed towards teens. That's really not the case at all, just so you know. I think it's more of a marketing thing than anything else, and I also believe that will change as the film continues to pick up momentum and they re-design the marketing around it to encompass a MUCH larger audience.

I would definitely recommend to see this one in the theatre, but only to those who are interested in something out of the norm of the hollywood big budget film. Like I said, if you liked Blair Witch, you'll enjoy this one.

-brown
 
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