PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4 (2012)

The fourth installment in the Paranormal Activity series, directed again by duo Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, takes a different route compared to the first three. It is the first film to not focus on the main family from the previous films, and instead features a new family – the Nelsons. The main protagonist in this is a blonde, teenage girl named Alex (Kathryn Newton), and she records the supernatural goings on in her house after her family takes in a neighbour’s child.

Even though this film has many negative reviews about it, mostly all including the usual ‘it’s just the same film as the previous three’ and ‘nothing really happened’, I have to disagree with them. Okay, so it doesn’t add much to the original plot, but it did inform us about Hunter’s whereabouts and showed him getting ready for the demon – Toby, to take possession of him. It is a very fascinating story and deepens the primary plot even more. What people have to realise is that this film is part of a series and it’s not the final film, so all of the questions won’t be answered in one go.

Compared to the previous three films, this one has definitely toned down the amount of jump scares used, and concentrates more on making full scenes creepy. By doing this, the audience will be feeling more on edge, as they won’t be able to guess where the jump scares will be as easily. Also, it allows the directors to focus on making both the children in the film (Robbie and Wyatt) creepy and mysterious throughout. This makes it a very thrilling watch all the way through.

This film uses different forms of technology to film the supernatural activity, including an Xbox Kinect, the webcams in laptops and an i-Phone. Each of these was very interesting to see how they would work, instead of just using video cameras. They all definitely succeeded in capturing the events in a new way, as well as also still being realistic. The best part about using these forms of technology is that the audience are welcomed into looking all around the screen for slight movements that could be paranormal activity. There are certainly a few cases of this in this film, the more noticeable ones taking place during the Kinect scenes.

The greatest part of this film was the ending, truly creepy and will leave you wanting more. Not only does it raise more questions to be answered, but it ties up some old ones, such as – is Katie involved with the coven? It is literally a perfect ending.

LOT 13 - #1

LOT 13 is a five part, haunted house series from DC Entertainment, which was released on Halloween this year. Steve Niles (notable works – 30 DAYS OF NIGHT and SIMON DARK), takes charge in the writing, whereas Glenn Fabry (SLAINE and JUDGE DREDD) does the artwork. Since they both come from horror themed comic backgrounds, you can expect LOT 13 to be very gruesome.

The story starts off in Fairfax, Virginia, in the 1670’s, at a trial of a man for the murder of his whole family and his own suicide. Since this is a very religious community, suicide is looked highly down upon, and so the dead bodies of the whole family are beaten, torn apart and thrown in a ditch. The comic then moves to the future with a family of five, moving house to the same town the murders/suicide took place in. Unfortunately for them, the house they were supposed to move into isn’t ready, so the family have to look around for a place to stay. After crashing into a ghostly figure, the family stop the van and see they are next to an apartment building. Feeling tired, they book their rooms and decide to stay the night. As soon as they are settled into their rooms, the youngest child – Austin, gets a knock at his door, and standing there is the ghostly figure they recently crashed into.

What I like best about this comic is that it is actually damn creepy. The artwork is some of the best I’ve ever seen, especially when it comes to the zombies creatures – far superior to the artwork in THE WALKING DEAD. There is no lack of blood and guts too; some of the characters even have half of their heads missing and organs flying around everywhere. Not only is there physical horror, there is a strong presence of the paranormal in this comic too. One of the children – Jackie, is playing around with her new phone and looking at photos of the family on holiday. Instead of the actual photo, there is an image of the family rotting and decaying, and when she goes to turn it off, the words ‘DIE’ in blood red come across the screen.

This is by far one of my favourite comic books of the year so far and I’m really looking forward to reading the rest of series and seeing what else happens. From some pictures I’ve seen, things get an awful lot bloodier and there are so many more creatures lurking around the apartment building.

INTERVIEW WITH ARIEL SCHULMAN

SG: How did the two of you get involved with the Paranormal Activity series, were you fans of the first two films and did the success of catfish have much to do with it?
AS: We’d been fans of the first two “Paranormal’s" but never thought in a million years we’d be asked to direct the third one. We didn’t even consider ourselves horror directors. But the Paranormal team at Paramount really liked Catfish, and based on the one really scary scene in that movie, thought we’d be a good fit.

SG: The trailers (especially with Paranormal Activity 3), includes a lot of footage not included in the films, was this deliberate?
AS: That was not deliberate. The film’s production timeline is so fast that the marketing team is cutting a trailer while were shooting. They don’t know exactly what scenes were keeping the final edit by the time they need to release a trailer, and neither do we. We end up cutting scenes at the last minute. The positive side-effect to that is that the audience thinks they know what they’re going to see but is in fact surprised, which is the point of horror and suspense. Most trailers give everything away.


SG: How did the idea of using a Kinect in Paranormal Activity 4 come about?
AS: The objective of the found footage genre is to motivate the camera with a camera the characters would have. We settled on laptops this year, because it seemed so natural for a modern house with two kids. We considered using the camera in the Kinect as well, but then we found this YouTube video showing what else the Kinect could do…project thousands of infrared tracking dots. So we thought that was cool.


SG: What is the hardest part about filming in the found footage style and did you come across any major problems?
AS: The hardest part is motivating the camera in an expositional scene. You have to figure out how to have a character say important stuff naturally, and have a camera believably rolling.


SG: How do you feel when fans say that the films are very repetitive and predictable, do you feel like you have to push the boundaries more?
AS: That’s part of the charm of the films. They have to be repetitive and slow to lure you into their suspense. But predictable isn’t good, we should always push the boundaries.


SG: There is a Latino spin-off in the works, which is going to be directed by a writer in the Paranormal Activity series, but how closely will this tie in with the original series?
AS: We can’t really say. That project is under double secret confidence within the studio.


SG: Have you guys thought about how you would like the series to end and how many more sequels would that produce?
AS: We’d like it to beat the Saw franchise, and end with angels and unicorns.


SG: On a few social networking sites, there is a man called Jacob Degloshi. He most recently posted a photo on twitter of his daughter with her friend ‘Alex’ from PA4; also he is posting videos of ‘Katie’ and ‘Kristi’ as children from old VHS tapes he found in his daughters suitcase. Can you tell us anymore information about this?
AS: That sounds like a crazy tie-in to the movie. Paramount gets pretty funky with marketing…I’ll check it out.


Thank you very much, Mr. Schulman – I can’t wait to see what you do next!

THE BAY (2012)

You may wonder why the Oscar award winning director; Barry Levinson, decided to work on a found footage horror film, which is leagues apart from his usual drama films. After watching THE BAY however, it is clear that this film was made to the highest quality, with an amazing and thought provoking storyline. Though this primarily a mockumentary, the events that occur in the film are all extremely plausible and even the creature that causes all of the destruction is genuine.

Amateur reporter Donna Thompson (Kether Donohue) sets out to document the 4th July celebrations around the Chesapeake Bay, Maryland. Halfway into the day though, numerous people start to get infected with an unknown virus. As the local hospital staff work with the CDC to try and work out what the problem is, the virus soon spreads to the whole town.

The best part about this film is the narrative, it’s not the usual type of found footage film where the protagonist is the one filming everything. Instead, it’s seen from various people’s points of view and uses countless types of media, such as; Skype conversations, hand held cameras, facetime on the i-Phone, security cameras, news reports and hand held cameras. By having a lot of different points of view, it meant that there are a lot of characters to follow. Fortunately, it was extremely easy to watch and to understand each character’s situation. Unlike other horror films with a large cast, I found myself becoming attached to the majority of the characters, and when their fate unfolded on screen, I actually felt incredibly sad. It was distressing to say the least.

Most found footage films rely on jump scares to shock the audience; however, THE BAY paces itself to build up the tension, and manages to keep the audience on edge until the very end. There are still some scares in the film though, and scenes with sickening gore. The amount of gore was just right, it wasn’t over the top to try and disgust the audience, but it was fascinating to look at, as it could actually be real. Realism is the films strongest point, horror films work so much better when they intentionally base the plot on real events. In a recent interview, Levinson stated that THE BAY is “80% factual” and was originally going to be a documentary.

On the whole, the film works extremely well as a horror and will definitely make viewers feel uneasy. THE BAY is disturbingly realistic and focuses on human behaviour and social commentary, instead of just using worn-out techniques to scare the audience.

THEATRE OF THE DERANGED (2012)

If you’re looking for something well-written and scary, then I’d stay away from this film, far away from this film. On the other hand, if you’re looking for something entertaining, over the top and you’re possibly high, then this would be perfect for you. THEATRE OF THE DERANGED consists of five short films, each made by a different indie director and introduced by ‘Andy The Arsonist’.

The first segment – LUST FOR BLOOD, was jointly directed by M. Kelly and the star of the film; Shawn C. Phillips. My initial thoughts about this piece were that it looked like a high school student’s film project; shoddy camera work, possibly the worst acting I’ve ever witnessed and a terrible script. However, as soon as I changed my outlook and watched it as a comedy, I found it to be the funniest horror/comedy hybrid I’ve ever witnessed. Reminiscent of 80s Troma films, LUST FOR BLOOD include ridiculous special effects, such as green ooze (that Philips rubs into himself almost too seductively) and spaghetti, to represent the innards of one of his victims. All in all, this short film is ridiculous, in the best and weird way possible.

Next, up was Liz Gilbert’s BAD DENNIS, a film set in rural England featuring a group of Goths on a trip to Glastonbury. Unfortunately for them, they travel during ‘cider season’ and encounter what is perhaps one of the weirdest looking individuals I’ve seen in a horror film. Not even a good type of weird, the character just looked like a man covered in grass, which isn’t very exciting at all. The acting in this short is definitely the worst out of the anthology, but at least the plot is decent and there is a bit of gore. Possibly the best part of this segment is how unintentionally funny the script is, and how the group of misfits react to their friends disappearing. Thankfully, there is a decent twist at the end which makes this very amateur film, above average.

James Cullen Bressack’s SPEAK EASY was the short that I was most looking forward to watching, and it didn’t let me down. This was definitely the most stylistic segment of the horror anthology. The first half of the film was a little slow, with two friends talking about the events of the previous night. As soon as the twist comes along however, the film takes a totally different route and there is an all out assassination, complete with a dubstep score and a shit load of blood. The two actors in this were without doubt the most qualified and most believable in their roles, compared to others in this collection of short films. This is a small, yet very interesting segment, and is one of the best.

Sadly, the next film – DOLL PARTS from Brian Dorton totally killed my mood and left me bored to death. The start of the film seemed promising, the camera work was pleasant, the actors weren’t too bad and the plot looked appetising. As time went on though, I just became more and more confused and ultimately uninterested. I can’t even remember how it ended, I was that fed up. I think the problem with this short film is that it’s feature length worthy and Dorton tried to fit too much in, in a short amount of time.

Fortunately, the anthology ended perfectly with CANNIBAL BLOOD GIRL from Creep Creepersin. The narrative was incredibly exciting and the actors that were featured were all suited to their parts. The plot is centered on a group of guys who take two girls to the place of a rape and murder that happened a few years ago. Surprisingly enough, the executed girl (played by the gorgeous Sophie Dee) comes back and kills everyone in the best way possible. Seriously, I couldn’t stop laughing, it was actually genius and reminded me of Japanese splatter horror films. I also want to give praise to Kevin E. Scott, who gave a hilarious performance and never failed to make me laugh each and every time he spoke.

On the whole, this horror anthology is a very fun watch – just don’t take it too seriously and you’ll love it.