An Academic Review of Paranormal Activity

Rating: Null/10 (24 October 2009)

I've been mulling it over, and I think Paranormal Activity did what all great "horror" movies can do: it touched on the raw nerves that we didn't really consciously recognize were there. I'm not talking about the fear of the supernatural, or the unknown, or the tired trope of "possessed psycho girlfriend" - those things are usually exactly what filmmakers err in relying on to carry a movie in lieu of sloppy writing and poorly fleshed-out characters. Not, that is, that the writing and character-development was particularly stellar in the case of Paranormal Activity. It wasn't - but the atmospheric development was, and in a preternaturally magnificent way.
See, most American filmmakers (and Video Game directors, I might add) tend to pay far too little attention to the atmosphere created by the interplay between camera (or "implied narrator," in the filmic jargon) and viewer. It's what made Hitchcock Hitchcock. It's what made Silent Hill (the game) Silent Hill (again -the game, and *not* the movie. The movie was turd- balls). It's what makes Japanese Horror good. Really, it's only in contrast to the expectations that the "average" American horror movie yield that PA stands out as so delicately effective.
To start with, the film centers on two characters. Done and done. Furthermore, these two characters - a straight, white couple - live in a three-bedroom house that has all of the domestic charm of a newly-spawned SIMS abode (less, really, considering that in the SIMS you at least get that snappy elevator music). We learn that the dude is a Day-Trader and the chick is a Student (an English major, even). These details, of course, are entirely irrelevant to the "plot" (and I use the term loosely, as it can be described in less than five words: creepy haunting overtakes girl). This is where the Cloverfield intersection occurs: in like fashion, all of the exposition in PA occurs either outside of the film entirely (to be found in the viral video campaigns on You Tube, or the years-old My-Face-Space-Book profiles painstakingly created) - and is completely and utterly irrelevant whatsoever. It's like a giant middle finger being shoved straight up Aristotle's nostril - we don't need no steeenking plot!
What, then, makes us empathize at all with these characters? What provides us with the central conflict through which we, the audience, receive catharsis at its resolution? Nothing. Nada. Zilch. This film, along with Cloverfield, is proving what might just be the defining element of film that makes it different from any other medium: the characters, plot, and conflict are all practically negligible in comparison to the one effect that film can achieve best - atmosphere. We are immersed and engaged because we are already in the movie - it's talking to us in a way that mere writing and post-production SFX can never do. It's making a pseudo-Brechtian violation of the diagetic relationship by never even bothering to build the fourth wall, much less break through it. It alienates us by mimicking us exactly.
What I'm talking about is the subtext; the underlying commentary on life and people that the film tacitly makes by presenting the dual themes of isolation and consumption. It's precisely because the writing didn't try to explain why this newly-engaged couple would live in a large, empty house that it is so effective. No clumsy dialogue about wanting children, or building a future, or any of the other mundane claptrap that tries to legitimize the situation - it's just there. The barely-used kitchen equipment. The multiple musical instruments. The perfectly-maintained and hotel-quality spare bedrooms. They create the undertone of consumption, and it's that whispering indictment of excess that makes us guilty without even knowing it. Add to that the fact that only two other actors are even in the film, and you have an ambiance of isolation. These two are disconnected entirely from the world around them - amidst the suburbs of San Diego, this is relevant. This is what makes the voyeuristic quality of the implied narrator through which we interact with the film an added element of our guilt. No preachy monologues about the internet are necessary - we feel doubly-indicted because we, too, interface with the world via less and less "face-time", and it's that very disconnection with other human beings which allows our nerves to be so jangled by the keyhole-peeping quality of our interaction with the film. It seems... familiar.
Of course, the producers knew exactly who their target market was - it's no accident that footage from this film bears a striking resemblance to every one of the umpteen-thousand "paranormal" shows on every channel from Sci-Fi (sorry, I mean scyfi, or scy-fy, or skype, or whatever-the-hell-its calling itself now) to Animal Planet to even National-Effing- Geographic (academic integrity? What's that?) - the difference being that it actually pays off on its promise. Sure, they had a template - but it doesn't explain the sheer success of the film outside of that audience. If it weren't for the atmospheric element of the film and the way it exposes our cultural vulnerabilities, it wouldn't have made it to wide-release.
Now, I'm not saying that this was in any way intended by Oren Peli. If I've learned anything from watching DVD commentaries, it's that usually the filmmaker stumbles into genius like a drooling child who accidentally craps his diaper in the shape of the Mona Lisa. I'm just trying to explain why this film struck such a chord with its audience, and with me. bell hooks mentions the phenomenon of a "Social Haunting" in her treatises on media and culture, and I'm inclined to call this a manifestation of just that - the "Paranormal Activity" of the film, then, becomes the activity which it commits on our very social (un)consciousness, and which reminds us of the very real, existential vulnerability we face in our digitally-informed, non-renewable-resource-dependent, and increasingly- isolated lives.