vinyarb- you just have to read it

The Review

Whenever a movie is compared to The Blair Witch Project, I cringe.

Simply because, in my opinion, it was one of the worst movies of all time, right behind Shyamalan's Lady in the Water. Having said that, Paranormal Activity is actually much better, plus the fact that it was made for a less than $20,000 budget makes it an incredible case study for making budget movies.

The premise is simple enough. As the movie starts, we're aware that there's been some strange happenings in the house of a young couple, Micah and Katie. Micah then purchases a camera, strung on a tripod in their bedroom to record any strange activities that may happen while they were asleep.

And so we see the things that go bump in the night, which usually happens around 3am, as shown on the viewcam. The camera is set up nicely, showing the bed on the right, and the door on the left, which leads to the stairway heading downstairs.

Sure enough, we start hearing strange footsteps outside the room, and the door opening and closing silently. As the movie proceeds, we see the hauntings escalate to slamming doors, and even instances where Katies gets up in the middle of the night in a catatonic state, standing at the foot of the bed just starting at Micah, for up to an hour.

Why don't they get out of the house then, you ask? Ahhh.. that's where a psychic, Dr. Fredrichs comes in. He visits the house, asks a couple of questions with regards to the hauntings, and concludes that we're dealing with a demon, one which follows Katie, whereever she moves, so moving is not an option.

What the movie didn't do for me, was Micah's constant goading of the demon, even though he's had undisputable evidence of demonic activity from the video playbacks. He keeps recording, every night, and even brings in an ouiji board in an attempt to communicate with it, when in reality, I would have peed my pants and fled to south africa in search of a voodoo cure when i see my gf staring down at me in the middle of the night motionless for an hour.

As with the Blair Witch, NOTHING is ever seen of the demon, which will work for a short film up to 30 minutes. But for a feature film, we get a little restless after 45 minutes with no payoff in sight.

It does have its scary moments... but on the whole, unconvincing acting and a too long runtime spoils it for me.

The story behind the movie

If you think about it, the story of the film's journey from the making to it having an international release is  in itself even more interesting than the movie proper, so I thought it should be told, and retold.

The film was actually made in 2007, with a budget of $15,000. It was filmed in director Oren Peli's own home over 7 days.

It was first screened at the Screamfest horror film festival 2007, and DVDs were given away to anyone who would be willing to distribute it. However, no distributor picked up the movie. It wasn't until 2008 when the movie landed up with a Dreamworks executive, who, impressed with the film, passed it along until it reached Steven Spielberg, who took it home to watch.

*trivia time: According to Spielber, minutes after watching the film, his bedroom doors locked itself, and he couldn't get out for hours till a locksmith came to the rescue.

Despite the obvious cursed nature of the DVD, Spielberg greenlit the movie, and ordered a remake with a much bigger budget, again, passing directing duties to Peli.

Peli then negotiated a one-time screening of the original to gauge audience reactions so he would know which parts to trim and tweak in the remake. Alas, at the screening, people began walking out of the cinemas. Peli realised later that it was because the film was to scary, and people couldn't bear to watch.

Based on this response, the producers decided not to do a remake, and instead release the original to a limited number of theatres. Those releases sold out, and with the addition of a viral campaign getting 1,000,000 "demands", the movie eventually got a nationwide release.

Amazing huh?

Alternate Endings (erm... spoiler alert?)

The development lag time between 2007 and 2009 also allowed Peli to make some changes to the film, most tellingly the ending.

There's a total of 3 different endings to the film, and they are:

1) Original Ending: Katie, after getting up and staring at Micah for hours, heads down the stairs in a daze and begins screaming soon after. Micah awakens and rushes to help, and we hear a struggle. Micah and Katie's screams are cut off, and after a while, we hear footsteps approaching. Katie walks into the room bloodied, and holding a knife. She proceeds to sit by the bed and rocks back and forth in a catatonic state, well into the next day. Her friend Amber rings the house to no answer. Amber then visits, and flees the house upon seeing Micah's body (again, we only hear the commotion, all the while, the camera is fixated on Katie). After Amber leaves, Katie proceeds to rock back and forth till the next night, when police officers arrive. When they shine their torches on her, Katie snaps out of her catatonic state, and in her confusion, approaches the officers, with knife still in her hand. In a panic, the officers gun her down, and then discovers the camera as the screen fades to black.

2) Mass release ending: After Micah rushes to help Katie downstairs, and their screams are abruptly cut off, we hear footsteps approaching the door to the room. Suddenly, Micah's body is hurled towards the camera, toppling it. Katie walks into view, her face contorted demonically. She then smiles at the camera before lunging toward it, cutting the screen to black. An ending title card states the discovery of Micah's body by the police, and Katie's whereabouts remain unknown.

3) One-time screening ending: Following the screams and footsteps, Katie steps into the room with the knife and proceeds to slit her own throat.

Which ending did you see, and which is your favourite?

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