Paranormal Activity (2009)

Just in time for Halloween, a RETURN TO EXTREME UNCTION!!!

Just a general note, I've decided I'm going to make my posts much shorter in general, so I will be more likely to get them up, rather than let them pile up.

Now to the good stuff:

Paranormal Activity was directed by Oren Peli, and stars Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat as themselves.

This movie's been kicking around film festivals since 2007, and it seemed to get good reviews, though not much hype until recently. I really wasn't too enthused to be seeing it until I actually got into the theatre. I mean, it's a found footage movie about a haunting, meaning it could have gotten real hokey, real fast. I was expecting the same old Amityville Horror House nonsense, with flies and dripping blood, but the actual movie was much more subtle.

Basically, the director did something really smart and avoided the obvious. No cats jumped out of trashcans; no hideous visages appeared in reflections from behind the camera. Each effect was well placed and timed, so that each new occurrence built on the previous with almost no lag in between. This allowed the director to get the most out of each paranormal event, winding the audience up in a way that one really doesn't see in horror anymore.

I mean, the audience never sees anything truly tangible beyond shadows or footprints. The first scare is a door moving slightly one way, stopping, then swinging back in place. The end scene, out of context, could be considered on par with an opening scare in other movies, but when I saw it, the entire audience screeched. I was genuinely scared even after I left the theatre.

The only problem I had was in the advertising. Like Quarantine, (2008) the end shot is shown in the trailer. It just seems counter-productive, and trivializes the suspense the movie works so hard to build.

Movie: A

Trailer: C

Quarantine (2008)

Quarantine was directed by John Erick Dowdle, and stars Jennifer Carpenter and Steve Harris. It is now in theaters.

Okay, I know a lot of people were angry that the trailer showed the end scene of the movie, which I agree was a stupid move on the part of Andale Pictures, but to me, the fact that the trailer AND the poster state "The residents were never seen again" gives more away. The inclusion of that sentence contextualizes the movie as just another "found footage" film, putting it up against Cannibal Holocaust,(1980) the horrible little movie that invented the genre, The Blair Witch Project (1999) and Cloverfield (2007), all of which could be said to have more going for them.

Without the trailer and poster, Quarantine stands up much better against the competition. The point-blank explanation of the cover-up given in the trailer dehumanizes the terror of the people trapped in the building. I finished the movie feeling spooked, but then I looked up the poster and it made me say "Meh" and basically forget everything I had just enjoyed about the film. The image, which is taken from the last minutes of the movie as well, makes the movie seem generic and derivative. It is practically interchangeable with the poster from Pulse(2006).

This is not to say that the plot isn't derivative. It absolutely is. Quarantine is a remake, specifically one that was put into production before the original, [REC] (2007) was even released. As a result, there's no way this movie wouldn't suffer somewhat. The thing that saved it, however, was the acting, which is something that can rarely be said about a horror movie.

This is evident in one of the last scenes, in which Angela, the reporter, and Scott, her camera man, are the last two people left uninfected. They enter a dark room for a reason I'm not too clear on. Angela is wailing and crying, and she keeps repeating "Keep the light on me!" to Scott, whose camera has a lamp attached to the front. To me, this captures perfectly the irrationality of terror. The light won't save her. In fact, it will probably attract more infected to her, but her human need for illumination, for vision and for the clarity she instinctively feels vision will bring her, is too strong. She descends into gibbering fear in a realistic way, without going over the top, and it really is the strength of the movie.

Scott has a similar moment after he beats an infected person to death with the camera. This not only makes for a really cool scene, but the few seconds shot with the lens spattered with blood are harrowing. Scott has a Lady Macbeth moment, with the camera trained on his face as he obsessively wipes off the blood long after it is gone. This is his only real screen time, but he certainly makes the most of it.

The movie also got me thinking about the new "fast" breed of zombie that has been so popular since the release of 28 Days Later (2002). I think their rise in popularity is not only due to the fast zombies' increased virulence as villains versus traditional shambling zombies, but to changes in what we fear as a culture. This fast zombie is never a dead person risen from the grave, but someone infected with a rage virus (28 Days Later), a mutation of rabies (Quarantine), or something similar. Even I Am Legend, (2007) which was based on a book about vampires, was transmuted into a movie about zombies caused by a faulty cure for cancer.

I've heard theories that zombies are a personification of people's fear of meaninglessness, but I think a greater, less existential fear has taken over: the fear of science. This is similar to the proliferation of nuclear mutation films in the 1950s. With all the current talk of pandemics and biological warfare, disease is in the front of everyone's mind, and corruption of the body is one of the most personal and intense fears a person can have. What is the fear of death if not a fear of betrayal by one's body, of pain? Combine this with a distrust of government and you get Quarantine.

Acting: A
Movie: B
Marketing: C-