Paranormal Activity is an American supernatural horror film series consisting of six films and an unofficial film. Created by Oren Peli, the original film was widely released in 2007.
The films are based around a family haunted by a demon that stalks, terrifies and ultimately murders several members of the family and other bystanders during the course of the films. The series makes use of production cameras set up and used like security cameras or other recording devices in an attempt to present the films as found footage. The series has received mixed reviews, with the first and third films receiving generally positive critical reception, while the second film and fifth film receiving more lukewarm receptions and the fourth and sixth received mostly negative reception. The series is a strong financial success, making strong profits based on return on investment. The series as a whole has earned over thirty times the overall budget.
Films
Paranormal Activity Series Explained! - Modern Horror - Now that we've had our fun at Paranormal Activity, let's sit down for a few minutes and try to unwind everything that happened. Can we make a coherent mythology from the separate elements...
Paranormal Activity (2007)
Set in 2006, a young couple, Katie and Micah, who have recently moved to a new house in San Diego, California, are terrorized by a demon that Katie believes has been following her all her life. The film is designed to look like a found footage-styled film with Micah filming the activity in their house.
Paranormal Activity 2 (2010)
Set again in 2006, several weeks before the events of the first film, Katie's sister, Kristi and her family, who reside in Carlsbad, California, experience strange activity after Kristi's baby son, Hunter, is born. The film uses security cameras and a hand-held camera used in some scenes to film the activity in the house.
Paranormal Activity 3 (2011)
Set in 1988, focuses on a younger Katie and Kristi, who live with their mother, Julie, and Julie's boyfriend, Dennis, in Santa Rosa, California, as they encounter "Toby" the demon for the first time. Concerned, Dennis decides to set up a few cameras around the house, one of which is attached to a small oscillating fan that moves the camera back and forth. The film also uses a hand-held camera.
Paranormal Activity 4 (2012)
Set in 2011, the film focuses on Alex Nelson and her family residing in a neighborhood in Henderson, Nevada. The family begin to experience haunting concerning Alex's adopted brother, Wyatt, after Katie and her mysterious son, Robbie, move in across the street. Alex is helped by her boyfriend, Ben, to film the activity via MacBook webcams, Video camera, iPhone camera and Kinect technology. "Toby" is mentioned once in the film.
Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones (2014)
Set in 2012, the film follows a Latino community in Oxnard, California, where a group of high school graduates deal with the demon of a mysterious cult who have "marked" one of them. They document their experiences using basic tools of recording and with clues from the previous films to try to understand what is happening to them. The Marked Ones is the last film in the series to feature Katie Featherston.
Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension (2015)
Set in 2013, follows the Fleeges, a family of three who, after having relocated to a house in Santa Rosa, California, discover several tapes that show Katie and Kristi in the midst of their initiation ritual to enter a demonic coven 21 years before. The family begin to be haunted by the demon when the daughter, Leila, is targeted as she was born on the same date as of a boy from Paranormal Activity 2, Hunter. Along with normal recorders, the family also discover a unique video recorder that can show supernatural happenings, which they use to record the increasing paranormal activities.
Unofficial film
Paranormal Activity 2: Tokyo Night
A Japanese Paranormal Activity sequel was released in 2010. It follows Haruka Yamano, who was in a car accident that broke her legs. She stayed home with her brother while their father was away as strange activity started happening in the house. It is later revealed that Haruka killed the possessed Katie in the car accident, causing the demon to transfer to her.
Cast
Crew
Development
First-time director Oren Peli had been afraid of ghosts his whole life, even fearing the comedy film Ghostbusters, but intended to channel that fear into something positive and productive. Peli took a year to prepare his own house for shooting, going so far as to repaint the walls, add furniture, put in a carpet, and build a stairwell. In this time, he also did extensive research into paranormal phenomena and demonology, stating, "We wanted to be as truthful as we could be." The reason for making the supernatural entity in the story a demon was a result of the research pointing to the most malevolent and violent entities being "demons". The phenomena in the film take place largely at nightâ€"the vulnerability of being asleep, Peli reasoned, taps into a human being's most primal fear, stating, "If something is lurking in your home there's not much you can do about it." Attempting to focus on believability rather than action and gore, Peli chose to shoot the picture with a home video camera. In deciding on a more raw and stationary format (the camera was almost always sitting on a tripod or something else) and eliminating the need for a camera crew, a "higher degree of plausibility" was created for the audience as they were "more invested in the story and the characters". Peli says that the dialogue was "natural" because there was no real script. Instead, the actors were given outlines of the story and situations to improvise, a technique known as "retroscripting" used in the making of The Blair Witch Project. In casting the movie, Peli auditioned "a few hundred people" before finally meeting Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat. He originally auditioned them individually and later called them back to audition together. Peli was impressed with the chemistry between the actors, saying, "If you saw the footage, you would've thought they had known each other for years." During a guest appearance on The Jay Leno Show on November 3, 2009, Sloat and Featherston explained they each saw the casting call on LACasting. Featherston noted they were originally paid $500 for their work. The film was shot out of sequence due to Peli's self-imposed seven-day shooting schedule, though Peli would have preferred the story unfold for the actors as he had envisioned it. Sloat, who controlled the camera for a good deal of the film, was a former cameraman at his university's TV station. "It was a very intense week", Peli recalled, stating that the film would be shot day and night, edited at the same time, and would have the visual effects applied to it as the acting footage was being finalized.
Paramount and DreamWorks hired screenwriter Michael R. Perry to create Paranormal Activity 2. Oren Peli, the director of the first film, served as a producer for this prequel. Kevin Greutert, director of Saw VI, was initially hired to direct the prequel; however, Lions Gate Entertainment exercised a clause in Greutert's contract to have him direct the final film in the Saw film series. Both of the actors from the first film, Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat, reprise their roles in the prequel. Tod "Kip" Williams directed Paranormal Activity 2, which started production in May 2010 and was released in October the same year.
Paranormal Activity 3 and 4 were directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, documentary filmmakers who were well known for their feature debut Catfish. Production on the third entry began in June, 2011, with a release October 21 of the same year. Filming for the fourth film commenced in June, 2012, with a release of October 19.
A Latin American-themed fifth film, Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones was released on January 3, 2014. Oren Peli, the creator of the franchise, returned to produce the film, while Christopher B. Landon, a screenwriter who had worked on the prior three entries in the series served as the writer and director.
The sixth and final film in the series, Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension, was announced to be released on October 25, 2013. However, in August 2013, the release date was pushed back to October 24, 2014. On September 17, 2014, the film's title was finalized and the release date was set on March 27, 2015, later changed to October 23, 2015. In September 2013, it was confirmed that Gregory Plotkin, a film editor who has edited every release in the series since Paranormal Activity 2, will make his directorial debut with the fifth film. Oren Peli, the creator of the franchise and Jason Blum will return to produce the fifth film. In late September 2013, Paramount hired Almanac writers Jason Pagan and Andrew Stark to write the screenplay. Though series writer Christopher B. Landon told that several sequels would follow The Ghost Dimension to wrap up the story, producer Jason Blum later confirmed that the film will indeed be the last in the series. He said:
"It’s coming to an end. This is it, the finale. 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… 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."
Reception
Box office performance
Critical and public response
Video game
A video game called Paranormal Activity: The Lost Soul was released on August 15, 2017 on PC, PS4, and Xbox One. The game was engineered for use VR and made use of the PlayStation VR for the PlayStation as well as Oculus Rift and HTC Vive for PC, but VR was not required for play.
References
