Known for his ability to get out of impossible situations with only a paperclip, a stapler and a jar of K/Y Jelly, would MacGuyver stand a chance against The Guyver? Or would he get pulverized before he even had a chance? In this epic battle of brains vs. brawn who do you think would come out victorious?
Interesting fact, MacGyver’s first name is ‘Angus’… Guyver’s first name is ‘The’ (although before being fused with the alien suit his name was Sean Barker).
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Keeping the vein of Paranormal Activity comes the Latin American movie “La Casa Muda” or “The Silent House”. What’s unique about this one, besides it’s $6,000 budget, is the fact that it is billed as being one continuous shot… for 72 minutes! Now obviously they aren’t going to admit it, but I have a feeling that this was not shot as one continuous shot, but rather made to look it through the use of creative editing. It also claims to be based on a true story, but then again what movie isn’t these days… So give the trailer a look and let us know what you think. I’m kind of excited for this one after watching the trailer and yes, it’s because of that 72 minute continuous shot marketing… I’m not sure when it’s supposed to come out, but you can read the plot synopsis below.
Laura (Florencia Colucci) and her father Wilson (Gustavo Alonso) settle down in a cottage that seems to be off the beaten track in order to update it since its owner (Abel Tripaldi) will soon put the house up for sale. They will spend the night there in order to start the repairs the following morning. Everything seems to go smoothly until Laura hears a sound that comes from outside and gets louder and louder on the upper floor of the house. Wilson goes up to see what is going on while she remains downstairs on her own, waiting for her father to come down. The plot is based on a true story that happened some time ago in a small village in Uruguay. La Casa Muda focuses on the last seventy-eight minutes, second by second, while Laura attempts to leave the house, which hides an obscure secret, unharmed.
REAL FEAR IN REAL TIME is the most remarkable underlying feature of the film, which will not go unnoticed by all those who may be willing to experience this different and disturbing filming experience.
Paranormal Activity 2 has been announced and will be released this October in theaters. Now my question is, is this what fans of this movie want? Obviously it’s what the studio wants as they see it as an opportunity to make more money by exploiting a film that does not need a sequel and honestly I’m not sure many people want a sequel.
I loved the first movie. I actually think I like Paranormal Activity more than I liked The Blair Witch Project when it first came out and I liked that one a lot, but then the studio got greedy and released a sequel. If any of you have seen Book of Shadows: The Blair Witch 2, then you know what I’m talking about. Now I’m probably in the minority here when I say that I didn’t think the sequel to The Blair Witch Project was the worst movie I’ve ever seen, but I do think that it tarnished the originality and the idea that was the first movie. It tried to be creative in the use of the “found footage” that made the first one so famous, but it fell flat on it’s face. And this is what worries me about a sequel to Paranormal Activity.
If you weren’t aware, the writer/director/producer/editor/etc of Paranormal Activity, Oren Peli, is already hard at work on his next project entitled “Area 51″ which, as I understand it, will use the same style as Paranormal Activity. So with that being said and with Paranormal Activity 2 supposedly coming out this October, it’s hard to imagine that Oren will be the man behind the sequel, which makes me nervous. Not to mention the fact that the movie does not need a sequel, nor do I believe fans of the movie want a sequel as I mentioned before.
Based on the history of film, majority of sequels are not as good as the original. Sure there are always exceptions to that rule; Terminator 2, Aliens and to some people, The Godfather 2 (among others), but the most of the time sequels lack that originality that the first films had. And with a movie like Paranormal Activity, between the way it was shot and the way it concluded, it seems like it would be extremely difficult to create a workable sequel that will satisfy both the fans of the original and newcomers to the film.
I’m sure there are some creative ways that they can take the story, like following Katie after she lunges at the camera or maybe following the police as they look for Katie, but those two right there would not be a good story if told through the first person eyes of a camera. I guess it could be like the show COPS and follow them around as they investigate, but it seems to cliche and lame. Then of course there’s the obvious way to create a sequel and have the demon spirit inhabit another body after leaving Katie’s, but right there you would be setting us up for the exact same movie just with different characters and it will most likely lack that feeling of realism that the first one managed to convey.
I don’t know, I’m still kind of torn on the issue so I wanted to see what you guys thought. Like I said, I’m a big fan of the movie and can’t wait to see Oren’s “Area 51″ to see what else he can do with the shooting style, but I really believe that straight sequel to Paranormal Activity is going to ruin everything that was great about the first one. So what do you think about the a sequel to Paranormal Activity? Do you think it could work? Do you have any ideas on how they could move the story forward and not make an almost straight up rehash of the same story? Help me get excited about this or at least let me know that I’m not alone in not really wanting to see this get made.
Since Halloween is coming up this weekend and I’ve already done my Halloween Horror Movie Recommendations for this year and with the success of Paranormal Activity this past weekend, I thought I would make another horror movie type post related to the Point-of-View (P.O.V.) / First Person / Found Footage type movies out there. Many people seem to believe that The Blair Witch Project was the first movie to successfully use this style to captivate, scare or straight up terrify an audience, but little do they know that there were others that came before it, most notably Cannibal Holocaust which was the inspiration for The Blair Witch Project film style.
So I thought I’d take the time to put together a decent list of other (mostly horror) movies that were shot in the same style of the current phenomenon that is Paranormal Activity and The Blair Witch Project. I have personally seen all of these except the last 2, which are currently on my Netflix list and I hope to see them as soon as I can. If there are any other movies in this style that I missed, horror or not, please let me know in the comments.
Cannibal Holocaust (1980) – As far as I am aware (please correct me if I’m wrong) this is the first movie to utilize the idea of “found footage” that shows the main characters’ point of view as they experience something truly terrifying. In this case “An anthropologist heads a rescue party into the South American jungle to find a missing film team making a documentary on cannibal tribes but can only return with their footage, which reveals their crueler intentions.” The first part of the movie follows the normal film style as this anthropologist goes out to South America to find the film crew, but once he returns with only their footage the movie jumps to that very footage for almost the full remainder of the film. This movie has been highly criticized since the day it was released. After the screening in Italy the film maker was promptly arrested until he could prove that the actors in the movie were actually still alive and that he didn’t just create a snuff film to show to audiences. Despite being released and not charged after proving the actors were still alive many counties opted to ban the movie entirely due to it’s depiction of violence and gore, not to mention the actual slaughtering of animals on camera. And actually, because of the slaughterings on the latest release of the DVD there is a PETA friendly version that does not contain the killings. This movie is definitely not for the faint of heart, I own the DVD and it is probably 1 of 2 movies that I will never watch again due to how disturbing and real some of the scenes are. (IMDB)
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I finally got a chance to check out Paranormal Activity today, it only took me so long because I had to find someone that would go with me, my girlfriend was having none of it and refused to go. It has been playing in my area for a couple weeks now, we normally get a lot of the limited releases in my area so I usually get a chance to check these types of movies out, but this time I had to wait for a wider release because nobody wanted to come down this way to check it out.
Paranormal Activity follows in the footsteps of movies like The Blair Witch Project, Cannibal Holocaust, [REC]/Quarantine, Cloverfield and Diary of the Dead. It uses the first person point of view to both nauseate you and immerse you in the story, plus it’s a very cheap way to make a movie. Paranormal Activity is rumored to have cost around $11,000 and from the looks of it most of that money was spent on the camera and possibly renting the house. So the movie follows a couple that just moved in together and started experiencing some weird phenomena that is occurring in their new house, lights are flickering, faucets turn on and sometimes they can hear whispers. Micah decides to set up a video camera and record everything that happens to him and Katie while these strange things are occurring, but eventually things start to take their toll on both of them.
So without giving away too much of the movie and what happens I’m going to leave the plot at that. The 2 constantly film each other as these strange things happen as they try to figure out what it is and why it’s happening. I really enjoyed the movie as I thought I would, but I could definitely see how some people would find it a little boring. At times things moved a little slow, but I think those moments actually helped me to connect more with the characters. I actually felt as if I knew these people and was experiencing what they were experiencing, with them. The overall fear and terror that these two showed on screen definitely seemed genuine and made me feel uneasy for them everytime they went to sleep.
The bulk of the “activity” comes when the couple goes to sleep at night, as you would expect, but that doesn’t mean that nothing happens at all during the day. As the movie progresses the experiences become more intense and more suspenseful for the characters as well as the audience. There’s one scene in particular where Micah is going up into the attic that had me on the edge of my seat. The atmosphere and suspense that builds during certain scenes was sometimes more intense than the actual scare, and it’s not a bad thing at all, I actually liked it. I love the idea of the fear of the unknown and that’s exactly what’s going on throughout this entire movie. We don’t know what’s going on and the characters don’t know what’s going on, but we’re all in it together trying to figure it out.
The way the plot moved forward and the way the movie ended kind of reminded me a lot of The Blair Witch Project, but I think that this film delivered on more of the scares that I remember expecting when I saw The Blair Witch Project. So if you’re into these types of “first person”, shaky-cam type movies and you’re looking for a movie that will make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up as well as creep you out, then definitely go check this one out. I’m glad that Paramount decided to release this movie “as is” as opposed to remaking it as they were planning on doing. I know the ending that we’re seeing in theaters now is not the original ending that the filmmaker shot, but this ending was incredible and I’d love to see what the original one was. I also like the fact that Paramount did a few things that are a little unconventional with movies, in addition to starting off the movie with some text to make the audience think this is real footage, at the end of the movie they completely cut all credits which left the entire theater sitting there for about 5 minutes in silence thinking there was more… great way to give people time to process what they just saw before leaving their seats.
So what did you guys think? Have you had a chance to check this one out yet? Did it live up to the hype, was it better than The Blair Witch Project?
