Paranormal Activity: A lesson to Hollywood

By Ann Hunter on October 26, 2009

The newest fright fest, Paranormal Activity, has topped the box office despite its miniscule budget of $15,000.

Produced for about the price of day’s catering on a Hollywood blockbuster, Paranormal Activity broke through, thanks to innovative viral promotion and . . . we’ll . . . a good movie.

The movie is raw and straightforward, presented in a “reality” format much like 1999’s Blair Witch Project. However, unlike the Blair Witch, which used deceptive practices to market the film (making people believe it was a real story by planting news articles), Paranormal Activity used the Internet’s viral platform to ask their fans to “demand” that the film be released to a national audience.

Hollywood has lost creativity over the years with any new horror flicks being reliant upon gore (Saw) or falling back on the sexploitation genre (Friday the 13th).

Other films that may be indeed by scary movies are thrown into the thriller or scifi genre as of late and toned down to appeal to a big-tent market. A good example of that is the original White Noise.

Hollywood should take a queue from Paranormal Activities producer and go back to good writing and even better use of basic dramatic elements, (suspense, tension, mystery) to produce better, and more frightening films that may not appeal to everyone, but when they do, they hit the mark.