Paranormal' director discusses smash hit
October 28What goes on while you're asleep? "Paranormal Activity" gives us the terrifying answer. The film centers on a young couple who hear strange noises in their house at night and decide to set up a handheld camera in their bedroom to see what goes on while they sleep. What begins as a series of seemingly forgettable coincidences soon becomes a nightmare. The movie was written, produced and directed four years ago by first-time filmmaker Oren Peli using only a handheld camera and $15,000 from his pocket. After years of trying to get the film distributed, Paramount finally agreed to support the film. Hundreds of sold-out screenings in select cities later, the film is being released nationwide this weekend. The Daily got a chance to speak with Peli about his remarkable success story and ridiculously scary film. Question: The film was a spawn of your own personal experiences. Did you ever have any aspirations to be a filmmaker beforehand? Oren Peli: To some degree yes. I mean everyone loves movies, but I loved movies in a way of like, when I watch a movie, I dissect it and try to figure out why a shot was done this way and wondering, ‘Could I have done it differently?' So I always felt, in the back of my mind, it would be fun to make movies. I didn't really think it would ever become something practical until after I saw movies like "[The] Blair Witch [Project]" (1999) and "Open Water" (2003) which showed that even with virtually no budget and just a video camera, if you have a good idea, you can just shoot a movie on your own, and hopefully it turns out good. Q: The film draws a lot of comparisons to "The Blair Witch Project" stylistically. Was that your biggest influence? OP: It was definitely an influence. "Blair Witch" is the most successful movie that employed this kind of style, the [cinema-vérité] mockumentary style, but I've been a fan of that even before, since "Spinal Tap" (1984). "Blair Witch" definitely showed that if it's done right, with good acting and good writing and good editing, that type of movie can actually be very commercially successful. So that was definitely an influence. Q: Everyone I speak to says that [the movie is] scaring them to the point that they can't even sleep. While you were making it, did you know that it was going to be that scary, and was that a concern of yours? OP: It wasn't a concern. It was something I was hoping would happen. But I had no idea that it would get the kind of reaction that it did, so it definitely exceeded my expectations. I knew that by placing the setting in their bedroom, that's the one thing that you can't really escape. After people watched "The Blair Witch Project," people said, "I'm never going to go camping again." After "Jaws" (1975), people said, "I'm never going to go swim in the ocean." But if you set up the setting for all the horrific things in someone's bedroom, then that's what you're going to be thinking about when you're lying in bed trying to fall asleep. Q: Did you expect the film to grow as exponentially popular as it has in the recent months? OP: I thought that it would probably do well because we'd seen in previous screenings that it gets really good word of mouth. But I don't think anyone predicted it was going to do this well. We didn't know that the fans were going to embrace it to the level that they did, which now has put it in a whole new category as far as the studio is concerned. And we're seeing the movie expanding from one weekend to the other, and that's all thanks to the word of mouth being spread by the fans. Q: I understand that there's a little bit of controversy surrounding different endings that were shot for the film. I know you shot an original ending but then a new ending was shot for the new theatrical release. Do you have any comments on whose decision that was and whether or not you'd rather have the original ending? OP: I liked the original ending personally. A lot of people liked it, but we also had a lot of people that didn't dig it at all. So we knew it's a sticking point and we decided to experiment with a couple of different endings. One of the endings that we experimented with was the one suggested by Spielberg, and interestingly enough, he knows a thing or two about movies, and that's the ending that went so well in test screenings. People loved it, and every time when I see the movie with an audience, it gets a huge reaction. After that there was no question about which ending we were going to use. Q: I just want to know, aside from fan response and the praises that your film is receiving right now, what is your ultimate goal for this movie? OP: For now I'm just happy that the fans are getting a chance to watch the movie and that they're enjoying it. And as the movie continues to get good word of mouth and keeps expanding in more theaters, I just hope that everyone that wants to see the movie gets a chance, and hopefully they'll enjoy it and tell a friend.
