Paranormal Activity, the latest horror film to hit the big screen is currently terrorizing audiences everywhere. A film that cost a mere $15,000 to make raked in $22 million this week alone, enough to take over the number one spot at the box office and easily crushing its closest competition, Saw VI, the latest chapter of the extremely popular Saw franchise that garnered just $14.8 million for its debut. 

This week's figures pushes Paranormal Activity's total haul to $62.5 million, an incredible feat for a film that began its promotion via a grassroots campaign that urged viewers to 'demand' Paranormal Activity in their hometown. The result? As Josh Greenstein, co-president of marketing at Paramount said: "The film is selling itself."

And indeed, after four weeks in a much narrower release bracket, Paramount finally slotted the little movie that could into 1,945 theaters, which is still under two thirds of the theater count for Saw VI, a much bigger production that after six installments was expected to come in at number one, as many of its previous installments have done.
Paranormal Activity is the brain child of Oren Peli, an Israeli-born video game designer who had no formal film training, and shot the low budget film in one week in 2006 with a no-name cast, a bunch of his friends from San Diego, and yes, a hand-held video camera. This is truly what dreams are made of.

Israeli director Oren Peli

As rumor has it, when Paranormal Activity was shopped around the industry back in 2008, it caught the eye of the people at DreamWorks, who were contemplating whether or not to back the thriller when Steven Spielberg decided to take a copy of the DVD home and check it out. In a strange and slightly creepy turn of events, not long after watching the film, the door to Spielberg's empty bedroom managed to lock itself from the inside, causing him to have to call a locksmith to get it open. Add this to a chain of other bizarre events, and Spielberg decided that while he had much enthusiasm for Peli's chilling tale, he himself did not want the DVD anywhere near his home. As the story goes, he returned the film to DreamWorks in a garbage bag. (Only in L.A.)

Despite being the creator of what critics are dubbing, "One of the decade's scariest films" and "an old school, haunted house horror," Oren Peli grew up fearing scary villains to the point that  he couldn't even sit through the comedy film "Ghostbusters."  Well now it seems as though all his fear was put to good use after all. Peli's nightmares have all been channeled into his creative work and are now condensed and concentrated in Paranormal Activity. It cannot be denied that it is striking a chord with the movie-going masses in a major way.
Coming soon:  a full review of Paranormal Activity from our film correspondent and resident horror expert here at VJ.

by T. Litvin