Paranormal Activity?

[StaedlerMars]

I kept on thinking people are talking about 'The Fourth Kind' when they were talking about this movie, and I didn't really get it.

I now saw the trailer and am a little bit intrigued.

[Linds]

I want to see both Paranormal Activity and The Fourth Kind. I must drag somebody out tomorrow night and make them see a creepy movie with me. I dunno if I'd do the jump thing, but watching horror movies alone sucks. Well, according to my mother it does because she made me watch The Exorcist alone and was then weirded out by the fact that I said I actually liked it and thought it was cool. But that was at home and not in a theater, which is way different.

[pilsner]

What an incredibly great movie.  Make sure you go with friends with full bladders, especially for the end which is a heartwarming exploration of how through mutual support, relationships can allow equal partners to achieve the impossible.

[scarred]

Before I watched Paranormal Activity



After I watched Paranormal Activity



what was that noise

i think it's getting closerrrrrr

[sean]

puke

[BrilliantEraser]

Dear Scarred,
I think I may love you.
--Ibby

[Cire27]

It didn't work for me.  It was too long, or something.  Maybe it was just the people who wouldn't shut the fuck up.

[Ikrik]

Just came back from it and HOLY FUCKING SHIT.  I think that I have an absolute favourite horror film.  Everything about it was perfect,  the actors, the slow build, the ending.  I want to see this film again SO badly.  There were small things that I wished they would have done a little bit more with, but wow, that was incredible. 

I thought it was just a little too short.  And I had a few REALLY stupid teenage girls behind me.  They were probably one of my favourite parts of the film.  They were laughing and kind of fooling around, until the really creepy stuff happens and they screamed.  Oh, how they screamed.  I don't think this film would translate at all to the small screen, being a part of the audience was totally awesome.

Oh, and if someone knows how they did the special effects for that, please tell me, I spent so much of that movie wondering "how exactly did they do that?" I'd mention certain scenes...but it's pretty much all of them.

[scarred]

However they did it, they did it for under $15,000, and with an onset production schedule of 7 days. The post work must have been nuts.

[Liz]

Yeah, I think I heard in an interview that they shot it in seven days and it took the director a year to do all the post production. Ridiculous.

[SonofZ3]

Maybe I'm alone on this, but I was really dissapointed by the ending. The last few minutes left me feeling like I had just paid to watch a "sci fy original" (I hate those). I felt like I had been watching something that had more of a feeling of reality than most documentary style films, but the ending threw it right back to being a B horror flic.

[Ikrik]

Go and read the original endings, there are two others.  The one they had in the film is the best.  It's easily the most effective as a scare.  I knew it was going to happen the minute it walked up the stairs right at the end. I didn't know what what going to happen but I knew whatever it was was going to do exactly what it did right at the end.

And you can thank Steven Spielberg for that ending.

[scarred]

Personally, I'm a fan of the ending where *SPOILER* she walks up the stairs and cuts her own throat.

Unfortunately, apparently that ending was only shown in theaters once. I watched the original ending of the 2007 festival cut of the film, where *SPOILER* she walks up the stairs and rocks for a while and the police find her and shoot her and it was OK, but I'd much prefer the shock value of the aforementioned.

Actually a mixture of the former ending and the current theatrical one would be fuckin' ace.

[jhocking]

Actually a mixture of the former ending and the current theatrical one would be fuckin' ace.

ooooh yeah that would be badass: *SPOILER COMBO* first she hurls the dude at the camera, and then cuts her own throat.

The dude was a cunt, glad what happened to him at the end; too bad about the chick, I think I love her.

Re-reading what I said on the last page, I'm realizing that the dude reminds me a lot of me, and the chick reminds me a lot of my fiancee. So really that would explain my feelings about them.

[scarred]

Exactly.

[Ikrik]

Just saw this one for the second time. 

Completely and utterly a different experience.

If you saw this one in a theatre where everyone was screaming and crapping their pants, congratulations, you just saw an amazingly terrifying film.

If you saw this one in a theatre where no one does anything except gasp...then...well...I'm sorry, you missed an awesome experience.

Seeing it for the second time totally killed it for me.  I have great memories of the first viewing but this time the whole thing was lifeless.  Also my girlfriend and I totally analyzed the film a little bit too much.   We thought a lot of stuff happened that didn't happen. I also thought the special effects were way better than they actually were.  I still think it's an awesome film...just be sure to see it on a friday night when all the silly little preteen girls scream and cry, it's WAY better that way.  When you see it with a dead audience the end cannot come quick enough.

[Liz]

Well you can't really compare it that way. Since you'd already seen it, you knew the things that would happen before they occured, so of course it wasn't as scary.

Honestly I think seeing it for the first time in an empty theater would be creepier. Just imagine you and maybe one other person alone in a giant theater, watching this movie. That would be the ultimate in freaky if you ask me.

[BrilliantEraser]

Or you, by yourself, alone in a huge theatre watching it.

Love your avatar, by the way, Liz.

[Liz]

Actually it would probably be creepier if you were watching it alone in your own bedroom. With the door open. I would crap myself if that were the case.

[jhocking]

What if you were watching it alone in your bedroom and then a gust of wind through the window made the door move.

[Liz]

I would probably have a heart attack and keel over right there. Or just scream incredibly loudly and run out of my apartment until I found the first available person and curl up into a fetal position at their feet.

[KvP]

So I went to a concert at one of those venues with a jumbotron that shows texts that people send in to some number, and while I was waiting for the show to start somebody texted the ending of this movie, and an audible groan was heard from a large portion of the crowd.

It was pretty brilliant.

[jhocking]

that is hilarious, I wonder if that's the first time someone's done that.

[Liz]

I actually knew the ending before I went to see it. Well, the general ending. SPOILER I knew that he ended up dead and she lived, but I had no idea how. When it started getting toward the end of the film and you could tell she was possessed, plus the thing with the picture frame, I totally knew.

[Ikrik]

Well you can't really compare it that way. Since you'd already seen it, you knew the things that would happen before they occured, so of course it wasn't as scary.

I wasn't talking about how scary it was for me the second time.  I was going by how the audience was reacting.  Both times the theatre was pretty packed, albeit the first time way more than the second.  The second time I saw the film though no one did anything at all, there were a few gasps but nothing more.  If I had seen it with the second audience first, I would not have enjoyed it nearly as much.  This is a film that really lives or dies based on the audience you see it with.  I don't think it's really all that frightening alone.

[scarred]

I watched it alone on my laptop in my bed with all the lights out.

It was pretty goddamn frightening.

[Liz]

You are a brave man. I would hug you right now if I could. I can't even watch the alternate endings on my laptop by myself in broad daylight.

[scarred]

I have not clutched a teddy bear so ferociously since Bambi's mom died.

[Liz]

<3