Tagline: What happens when you sleep?
A young couple, Katie and Micah, move into a new home and Micah records their life on his video camera. After strange events in the night, Katie admits that as a young child, she had once experienced a ghostly presence in her room. She sensed its malevolence and now worries that it may now have followed her to their new place. Micah is skeptical and sets up his camera in their bedroom to record any overnight activity. After a few days, they see their bedroom door move and it’s clear there is a presence in their house. Much worse is yet to come.
Paranormal Activity is a 2007 American supernatural horror film written, co-produced, photographed, edited, and directed by Oren Peli. It is the first (chronologically, the third) entry into the Paranormal Activity film series. The film centers on a young couple, Katie (Katie Featherston) and Micah (Micah Sloat) are haunted by a supernatural presence in their home. It is presented in the style of “found footage”, from cameras set up by the couple in an attempt to document what is haunting them. The film sets up found-footage conventions that were mirrored in the later films of the series.
Originally developed as an independent feature and given film festival screenings in 2007, the film was acquired by Paramount Pictures and modified, particularly with a new ending. It was given a limited U.S. release on September 25, 2009, and then a nationwide release on October 16, 2009. The film earned nearly $108 million at the U.S. box office and a further $85 million internationally for a worldwide total of $193 million. Paramount/DreamWorks acquired the U.S. rights for $350,000. It is the most profitable film ever made, based on return on investment, although such figures are difficult to verify independently as this is likely to exclude marketing costs.
About the Production
For writer-director Oren Peli, home is where the horror is. Literally. “Paranormal Activity” was photographed at Peli’s home during a seven-day sprint in 2006 with a crew of three that included co-producers Toni Taylor, Peli’s then-girlfriend, and Amir Zbeda, one of the filmmaker’s best friends.
Peli, whose name means “wonder” or “marvel” in Hebrew, is a native of Israel who dropped out of school there when he was sixteen to start his own software company. Three years later, he and Zbeda emigrated to the U.S., where Peli developed animation and video game programs.
After meeting Taylor and deciding to settle down, Peli went house-hunting during the height of the real estate boom. After being outbid on several houses, they finally managed to land a suburban tract home. “It was the first time I’d ever lived in a house; I’d only ever rented small apartments,” says Peli. “In quiet suburbia, I quickly learned that you become conscious of every little noise, especially at night.
“The house, or the ground around it, was settling; things were falling off shelves in the middle of the night,” he continues. “I’m not saying there was a ghost or anything, because the incidents, or whatever you would call them, were happening months apart.”
And for the next couple of years those nighttime noises – however intermittent – persisted. “It all got the techno-geek side of me thinking, ‘Maybe it would be cool to set up video cameras as a way to figure out what was going on,’” Peli says with a grin. “If those cameras caught something good, I thought that could make a pretty interesting movie.”
Continue Reading and View the Theatrical Trailer
Paranormal Activity (2009)
Directed by: Oren Peli
Starring by: Micah Sloat, Katie Featherston, Mark Fredrichs, Amber Armstrong, Tim Piper, Randy McDowell, Ashley Palmer, Spencer Marks
Screenplay by: Oren Peli
Cinematography by: Oren Peli
Film Editing by: Oren Peli
Costume Design by: Oren Peli
Set Decoration by: Oren Peli
Makeup Department: Crystal Cartwright
MPAA Rating: R for language.
Distributed by: DreamWorks Pictures
Release Date: September 25, 2009
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