Word: pelis
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Paranormal continued its preternatural rise. Made for $11,000, bought by Paramount Pictures for just $300,000 and marketed for less than $10 million, Oren Peli's subtle scare-athon earned $22 million to become a winner in its fifth week of gradually widening release. It has now earned $62.5 million and could hit $100 million. What's next? The Inevitable. According to today's Los Angeles Times, Paramount is "actively considering producing a sequel...
...than what either of Jonze's previous two features, Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, earned in their entire runs. (Mind you, Wild Things cost a lot more: at least $80 million.) Law Abiding Citizen had the highest per-screen average of any film directed by F. Gary Gray. Oren Peli is a first-time auteur, but since he made Paranormal Activity in 2006 for a laughably low $11,000, he could boast that his movie made back more than twice its budget in each theater that showed it. Peli's homegrown horror movie also made the other new fright film...
Then there are movies that people simply have to see. Paranormal Activity, made three years ago for a no-budget $11,000 - yes, thousand - is the new overnight sensation. Opening two weeks ago at midnight shows in 16 college towns, Oren Peli's haunted-house thriller expanded on Friday to full playdates at 159 venues and scared up a phenomenal $7.1 million. That's $44,475 per screen, making this the highest-ever average for a medium-size release. Paramount Pictures' clever viral media campaign helped, but credit the movie's breakout status to old-fashioned word of mouth...
Beyond the viral ingenuity of the marketing, what's cool about PA is that it's not just a fun thrill ride; it's an instructive artistic experience. A horror-movie revisionist, Peli follows a less-is-more strategy. He knows that waiting for the big scary jolt does more damage to the nervous system than getting it. The tension builds slowly, as the apprehensive Katie, a student, and the skeptical Micah, a day trader, feel the first emotional tremors. The movie keeps us in its grip because we never leave the couple's haunted property and because...
...Peli downplays shock and emphasizes suspense: a shadow creeping across a wall or the ripple of an unseen form under the bedsheets. The gore scenes in splatter movies carry a sadistic punch, but those are outside most moviegoers' experience. What Peli is interested in is dread, a feeling everyone is familiar with. (Will I lose my job? Has she found someone else? Why hasn't our kid come home yet? What's that strange rash?) Movies take that anxiety, crystallize it and, because fiction demands an ending, resolve it. The threat is provided, the fear made flesh, the monster confronted...