THIS MOVIE WILL EFF YOU UP FOR LIFE! Sorry, I always loved that tag-line. It's from one of the gonzo adverts in the under-appreciated Dudley Moore vehicle Crazy People. I became curious to see this film after I got wind of its unconventional promotional campaign. The website asked fans to demand the movie get distribution in their town via an on-line petition. I bit and lo and behold the movie got itself into regular rotation at a few theaters.
I can say that clicking through the petition's links was time well spent. The film is a gem. I applaud the director Oren Peli on performing a remarkable feat of guerilla filmmaking.
The story behind this film is almost as good as the movie itself. Shot for a ridiculously miniscule amount of money ($15K), director/writer Oren Peli made the film in his own house over a one week period (plus a year of prepping his house for the shoot). Peli also had no formal film school training (according to wikipedia). I'll just copy and paste the rest of the story from the wiki:
After the film was finished, Peli signed with the Creative Artists Agency. They screened the movie in 2007 at the Screamfest Horror Film Festival and, as a result, began to give away DVDs to anybody who would be willing to distribute it. It didn't see a spotlight until 2007 when Miramax Films Senior Executive Jason Blum and his producing partner, Steven Schneider, viewed the movie for themselves. Working with Blum, Peli edited the film down so that it ran tighter and smoother but more problems arose: Sundance Film Festival would not accept the film and even though the Slamdance Film Festival did, no distributor picked up the movie for major distribution.
In 2008, the DVD ended up at DreamWorks and was viewed by Production Executive Ashley Brooks. Brooks was so impressed by the movie that she "pestered" her boss, Production Chief Adam Goodman, every day to see the film until he eventually saw it. Goodman, in turn, brought it to his boss, Studio Chief Stacey Snider. They were impressed by the film as well and handed the DVD to Steven Spielberg, who took it home to watch.
In a strange twist, Spielberg allegedly returned to DreamWorks the next day with the DVD in a "garbage bag" because he thought the DVD was "haunted". According to Spielberg, minutes after he viewed the film, his bedroom doors "locked by themselves" and he couldn't get out without calling in a locksmith.[8][9] Despite this, Spielberg loved the movie and helped to greenlight a remake to be produced by Jason Blum and directed by Oren Peli again. "They didn't know what to do with [the movie]," Blum stated about the remake, adding that they just wanted to be "in business" with Peli.
The original deal for the movie stipulated that Oren Peli would direct and that the DVD would have the original film included with it so the public would get an idea of what the original film was about. However, during contract negotiations, Blum and Peli negotiated a one-time screening into the contract to see how a real audience would react to the original film. As part of the deal, Adam Goodman invited several screenwriters to the screening so that they could get an idea about what to write and see what should be added and subtracted to the remake's script.
During the screening, viewers began to walk out of the theater. Goodman was afraid that he made the wrong decision and that the screening was a bomb until he learned (in a twist reminiscent of the famous screening of 1979's Alien) that the viewers were actually truly frightened by the film. It was at this point that Goodman canned all thoughts of a Hollywood remake and decided to release Peli's version of the film.[8]
The film was supposed to be released in 2008 but was delayed further because of the rift between DreamWorks and Paramount Pictures. While the movie was stuck in limbo, Oren Peli and Jason Blum screened the film for international buyers at a theater in Santa Monica along with a sold-out crowd mostly of teenagers. This further cemented the film's reputation and Peli and Blum sold the international rights to 52 different countries.
The buzz generated by this and the positive word-of-mouth finally pushed Adam Goodman (who took over as Paramount's main exec) to release the film on the fall schedule.
I read a lot of reviews touting how downright scary the movie is. I unfortunately didn't find that to be the case, but it was a really funny film with some effective creep-out scenes. The conceit of the film (that we're just watching discovered amateur video; in this case a normal South Californian couple, one of whom happens to have a lifelong demonic tormentor) isn't new. The Blair Witch Project most famously utilized this gimmick to stellar results (nearly $250 million worldwide plus ancillary sales). Now a lot of people have come to view that film in a negative light. I for one was genuinely freaked the hell out by that movie. (I used to deliver papers and my route took me through the backwoods of Ann Arbor; good times.) I think that the backlash in that case was due to people exclaiming how "$#!t your pants"-scary TBWP was. So, I can understand people's reaction once they actually saw it. It can be a bit of a letdown if you're expecting the next The Exorcist. So I'll just say this movie has some good scares in it, but it's really just thoroughly entertaining.
The acting never takes you out of the film. You might call it amateurish, but it honestly just felt like two normal people dealing with a rapidly deteriorating situation. The screenplay only strikes a couple of false notes (I didn't really buy the reason they keep staying in the house), but I love the slow burn it employs. The one scene that keeps getting repeated numerous times (the fixed-angle shot of the couple sleeping) becomes more and more intense as the "paranormal activity" continues to build. The film knows how to work an audience. It also relies on the one truth that any horror-master worth his salt knows: the human mind will conjure things far scarier than anything you can actually show.
The real joy of this film comes in watching it with a crowd (one highly saturated with teenage girls would be optimal). I usually don't like unsolicited crowd participation, but in this case a good crowd really heightens the effect. I can honestly say I've never seen a crowd react so viscerally to on-screen proceedings. People were screaming, yelling at the screen and literally jumping out of their seats. It turned out to be contagious. Even though I wasn't really frightened, I did get the jumpsies.
So go to a midnight screening and for once embrace the teenagers. I knew they would come in handy some day.
