Are you a fan of the Internet pranks that truly terrify people in the name of good marketing? Well, today’s your lucky day. I’ve got a juicy one here for you, and it comes from Paramount, the studio behind the Paranormal Activity franchise. To boost awareness for The Ghost Dimension, the sixth and final film in the franchise, PA producer Oren Peli has dropped this highly entertaining prank video that follows unsuspecting house hunters entering the original haunted house featured in the 2007 original film. Peli shared the clip on his Facebook page with the caption, “Can you blame me for selling my house?” Fun fact: Peli, who wrote and directed the first one, shot it in this very San Diego-based home that he owned at the time. Now watch as the open house hauntings make those who enter quake in fear and scream bloody murder.
Four films and one spinoff later, the Paranormal Activity franchise is ready to reach its climax and conclusion. Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension is prepared to guide the supernatural horror flicks that came before it into the light by addressing the many unanswered questions and riddles left lingering over the years. Producer Jason Blum of Blumhouse Productions confirmed to USA Today that Ghost Dimension is indeed the final installment and that answers are coming.
“It’s coming to an end. This is it, the finale,” says Blum. “We’re saying it before the movie opens. We’re not going to grind this horror franchise into the ground. This will keep Paranormal Activity as part of this culture and this particular time in a really fantastic way. We couldn’t go just teasing. All the questions that everyone has asked from the past Paranormal Activity films: What does Toby look like? What’s the backstory to the families? These questions have been teased out. Now they will be answered.”
That’s a big one. Ever since the first Paranormal Activity released in 2007, audiences have been forced to use their powerful imaginations to put a face on the invisible, angry entity that has been terrorizing the families featured in all the movies. In Ghost Dimensions, a special video recording device enables the latest family to actually see the paranormal activity going on around them. PA producer and director of the original Oren Peli commented on this major reveal: “We’ve done well without showing Toby, being able to create tensions and scares based on audiences’ imagination,” he said. “But people are very curious.”
Curious, indeed! And by the looks of it, Ghost Dimension may just be the most haunting Paranormal Activity of all. Watch the debut trailer hanging above to see what I mean. Though the many sequels failed to capture the same kind of awe and suspense of the original, this final chapter aims to bring it all home by tying everything that came before it together in a neat bow. Hopefully plot satisfaction and fun scares will have made the journey worth it.
Eight years after the micro-budget original spent $15,000 and made $193 million at the box office worldwide, there’s no denying the powerful effect the Paranormal Activity franchise has had on the horror genre and the box office in general. It spurred the proliferation of scary micro-budget movies including other Blumhouse works like Insidious, Sinister, and The Purge. And perhaps we haven’t seen the last of PA after all?
“At some point, might there be a reboot? You never know. We’ve never discussed it,” says Blum. “[But] we made this movie like it’s the end of this Paranormal line for sure.”
Paramount is not releasing Paranormal Activity 5 this Halloween season; it’s being held until October 2014. Taking its place, however, is a PA spinoff called Paranormal Activity: The MarkedOnes. The found-footage spinoff, written and directed by franchise vet Christopher Landon, is a departure from the movies that come before it as it takes place in Oxnard, California and features a mostly Latino cast. This was done on purpose; the studio is targeting PA‘s Latino audience here. Fans of the franchise, though, will pickup clues sprinkled throughout the official trailer that tie this movie directly to the other ones: the Katie & Kristi tapes are mentioned, Kristi’s step-daughter Ali Rey (played by Molly Ephraim, last seen in PA 2) aids the new protagonist, and that demon-summoning triangle symbol is rampant throughout. The trailer, embedded above, says “this is only the beginning;” could this mean fans should expect more PA spinoffs set in the same demonic, found footage universe in the future?
Paranormal Activity: The MarkedOnes hits theatres January 2.
All of the activity has led to this, or so says the tagline of the upcoming Paranormal Activity film. In the fourth installment of the scary franchise, returning directors Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost (Paranormal Activity 3, Catfish) jump back to the present making PA 4 a true sequel to PA 2 (if you can recall, last year’s PA 3 took movie-goers to the ’80s as they discovered protagonist Katie’s backstory. 27 seconds into this extended, delightfully frightening trailer you can clearly see the camera’s timestamp display November 2011 so you can expect a story that will take place following the scares as seen in the second film. Katie (Katie Featherston) and her son Hunter are back to terrorize a mother and daughter in their demonic ways. Zack Estrin (The River, No Ordinary Family, Prison Break) wrote the script.
Another Halloween means another Paranormal Activity. With the Saw franchise dead and gone, Oren Peli’s low-budget supernatural horror flick has picked up the torch to become the go-to movie during the spooky season in late October. As seen in the trailer, the tape footage reveals the year 1988 meaning that the three-quel may serve as a true Paranormal Activity prequel starring a young Katie. Catfish directors Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost are at the helm here, and Peli serves as producer with Jason Blum, Steven Schneider, and Akiva Goldsman. PA3 releases October 21, 2011.
Hot off the heels of a stellar sequel, Paranormal Activity creator Oren Peli spilled the release date of the next movie in the series. Paramount confirms October 21, 2011 is the day. The original had a production budget set at $15,000 and generated nearly $197 million. The sequel’s budget was upped to $3 million following the original’s success, and so far it has generated a worldwide gross of around $157 million–and it’s still in theatres. Greenlighting a three-quel is a no-brainer. And with the Saw franchise (supposedly) out of the way, nothing’s stopping PA from raking in the cash next Halloween. That is, of course, if Hollywood doesn’t find a worthy horror flick to pit against it.
It’s baaaaaack. The demon thing that took over Katie (Katie Featherston) has returned in a sequel to 2009’s hit screamfest Paranormal Activity. This teaser trailer for Paranormal Activity 2 is just as creepy and mysterious as the original’s. So what do we have here? Multiple security camera shots, a baby, a whimpering dog, and a silhouette that resembles the actress Featherston (leading me to believe that the story will continue with the same demon that terrified us in the first movie). Paramount is taking the same route with the sequel–no casting information has been spilled in order to sustain the veil of realism that made this franchise so widely popular and successful.
If you take a closer look at the trailer you will notice two things. In the last frame at the end, we see a still of the baby’s room through the eyes of the security camera. But this time around the baby (and dog) are no longer in the scene. But look in the mirror! The baby is standing up in his crib! And what’s that scibbled message on the carpet? It reads “what is happening to hunter?” Oh sweet lord what is happening to that innocent little baby?!
You’ll have to wait and find out when PA 2 hits theatres October 22. Kip Williams directs, Oren Peli (writer/director of the original) exec produces.
Paranormal Activity2 is starting to come together. Writer and director of the original film Oren Peli posted a note to the film’s website sharing news that a new director has been chosen for the sequel. Kip Williams (The Door in the Floor) got the job. Peli says: “Kip is the guy we want at the helm, because he knows exactly what we want to deliver to the fans.” Peli will remain on the team as a writer and producer, and Michael Perry is set to pen the screenplay. Production starts in May and if all goes as planned, Paranormal Activity2 should hit theatres right before Halloween on October 22. Any plot details, you ask? Tight-lipped Peli has this to say: “I don’t want to spoil the story but I promise it will surprise you. Stay tuned.”
Paranormal Activity: The Search For Katie, A Case Study by Dr. Johann Averys DMN is the title of the comic that picks off right where the movie leaves us all hanging. Where is Micah? What happened to demon-captured Katie? It tells the story of Dr. Averys, the demon expert who we were not acquainted with in the film, and his search for Katie and some concrete answers. It’s written by Scott Lobdell and drawn by Mark Badger. When Gizmodo questioned Lobdell about the need for a comic book sequel he responded:
Even before I left the movie theater my mind was racing though a hundred different questions! Where did Katie go? How long had she been in thrall to the demon? Why did he do what he did to Micah… or have Katie do it? What about the mysterious Dr. Johann Averys — often mentioned but never seen? Could the case he was working on in Europe have anything to do with the case in San Diego? What would the investigation into the murder be like? One part cop forensics, one part study in demonology? The demon seemed like it had much larger fish to fry to scaring young women… could it have followers? A lot of this is set up in the first installment of the online comic book, and I can’t wait for the opportunity to further explore the world of Paranormal Activity.
Catch the “first installment” of Paranormal Activity investigation, comic-style in digital form at the Apple App Store (it’s 99 cents).
Paranormal Activity is a movie made by Oren Peli, “an Israeli-born videogame designer with no formal film training.” He shot the entire movie in one week for $11,000.
The thriller that made its rounds at film festivals has gained a very positive buzz on the Internet, especially on social networks like Twitter and Facebook. With obvious comparisons to the 1999 horror flick The Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity is also shot documentary style and is based on real-time happenings. The premise is as follows: “The film follows a young couple (Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat) who, convinced they’re being haunted by spirits, set up a video camera to monitor their bedroom over the course of 20 nights.”
There are many reasons why there is so much buzz and positive critical feedback for the movie. First, it has been reported that movie-goers have literally up and left their seats during initial screenings of the movie–it’s thatterrifying. Paramount president of production Adam Goldman witnessed 35 people walk out of an early test screening. Exit interviews were performed and they revealed that people left because they simply were not enjoying the movie; it was tooscary. Second, according to EW, “once the film was brought to the attention of DreamWorks, Steven Spielberg took a copy of the DVD to his Pacific Palisades estate, watched it there, and then found his bathroom door inexplicably locked from the inside. He thought the movie was haunted!” Whether this legend is true or not, it surely sets up a great viral marketing campaign, doesn’t it?
With all of this insane amount of buzz, Paramount has decided to create even more of it with a brilliant marketing campaign: “putting the power of movie distribution in your hands.” It is up to us to go online and “demand” that Paranormal Activityopen in theatres nationwide. Up to this point the movie has had a limited release. The studio promises that once there have been one million demands the movie will officially hit all theatres, making it widely available to be seen by all. As of this writing, the movie website’s counter has reached 914,434 “demands.” So no need to worry, it’s coming. Still, do your part and contribute by demanding the movie now right here and discuss the hype with others on Twitter (“Paranormal Activity” has been a trending topic for days now).
And I will leave you with this. Moviefone’s Kevin Poloway warns: “‘Paranormal Activity’ beats out ‘Blair Witch’ in one vital field: It’s scarier. While ‘Blair Witch’ may have scared people away from the woods for a few years (like ‘Jaws’ did the water two decades earlier), who’s going to stay away from their own bedroom?” Freak out and watch the trailer below and get ready for what people are calling “the scariest movie of the decade.”
