There's some Activity again this year...

In 2009, Paranormal Activity was the first film that Facebook had gotten to theaters. Looking at the history of that film, the money it made, the critical and commercial acclaim, but especially the money, it is no surprise that a Paranormal Activity 2 got the greenlight. What is a surprise is with the speed in which the sequel was pumped out.

Made for approximately $15,000 (not including any costs for promotion, though that was mostly handled by Facebook, eventful.com, and other social networking sites), the first PA went on to make over $193 Million in theaters alone. The second, which saw release this weekend, was made for around $3 Million, still not a huge budget in today's high-octane, reliant on CG blockbusters.

*SPOILERS FOLLOW*

The film opens with a couple bringing home their newborn son, Hunter. We soon learn the connection between PA2 and the original when Katie (the woman who went on to be possessed in the first) shows up. The movie then tells us this is 60 days before the death of Micah (the guy from the first). At first, the film makes it seem as though this happens after the first when Katie says Micah, "isn't up for hanging out today." It's when the character appears shortly after that the "60 Days before the Death of Micah Sloat" message is displayed.

While it was hinted in the first movie that Katie might've just been randomly picked by the demon (through a ham-handed expositive sequence where Micah is doing internet research), it is now more heavily hinted (through an equally ham-handed expositive internet search) that a demon may haunt a family until it collects payment for services rendered (read: the firstborn son of the family for making the dealmaker rich and powerful). It turns out Hunter, the infant from the beginning, is the first male born to Katie/Kristi's family bloodline since the 1930s, so...weird things begin to happen. At first, the family thinks that it's just a break-in, though nothing is missing, and dad decides to go overprotective with it and installs a half-dozen security cameras, and these become the "found footage," much like the hand-held camera from the first film.

At first, it appears that the buildup is going to be slow, like the first's, but it becomes quickly apparent that the filmmakers feel the audience won't stand/sit for that, and the shit hits the fan much faster this time around. There is a hand-held camera, usually operated by Ali, the father's daughter from a previous marriage, and the action splits between this and the security cameras.

There is a twist that if you think hardenough about it, you can see coming, but that doesn't mean it's any less creepy.

The characters are more likable this time around. There's the dad, who only wants to protect his family. The mother/step-mother, who wants to protect her baby. The daughter, who confesses she hopes that the family is haunted, and that it could be her dead mother. And then there's the baby, who is innocent in all of this, much like Abby, the family's German Shephard.

The acting is much the same as the first, in that they try to get the actors to improvise their lines, which does lead to some really weird lines, most of which come from Ali. Speaking of Ali, her character, at least in the beginning, kept slipping into the 'dumb-girl' voice, where each sentence ended in an upper inflection, as though she were asking a question. I couldn't help but think of Stewie from family guy every time the girl opened her mouth.

Overall, the film offers some genuinely scary moments, most of which are straight out of the first flim, that tend to play with the viewer's mind more than most slasher flicks out today (which was why the first PA was so effective). The film works (mostly) as a prequel/sequel (you'll see) to the first Paranormal Activity, but on its own, this film would probably cause most to scratch their heads, as I heard throughout my viewing of the movie. However, it always felt off that this movie was supposed to link up to the first movie as neatly as the makers probably hoped.

And speaking of my viewing, I have a huge complaint. If you're going to be spending $10+ to see a movie, watch the movie. It shouldn't be a venue to shout at your friends from across the theater, that's what you use school for. It also shouldn't be nap time. There was more than one person who had brought a blanket to the theater and decided to lay down and text for the duration of the movie. It speaks volumes about our society that we can't sit through a 90 minute movie without texting our friends or even being able to sit up.

*END RANT*

I'm sure that I'll be reviewing the third film at about this time next year in some form or another.

If you liked the first (and I did), this one is right up your alley. Just don't think too hard about how these two films fit together.

A Missed Opportunity?

As I've discussed earlier on in the life of my blog, I'm a writer. Not yet an author because apparently there is a distinction between the two, depending on whether one has been published. Writer = unpublished, author = published.

I bring this up because I wrote one story that I was sure would sell, only now I'm equally certain that it won't. You see, the story took a classic, popular text (Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, to be precise) and inserted the ever-popular undead into the story.

Now, I can hear the groans already (and not the ones coming from the previously mentioned zombies) but, while similar in description to Pride and Prejudice and Zombie, it is very different in form (to my understanding, anyway). I confess I've nver ready PPZ and only heard of it after I completed my ownstory and was describing it to a friend.

Nor is it the same as Romeo and Juliet and Zombies, which replaces, if I'm correct, Romeo with a zombified version of the Veronan lad. No, my story wasn't like that (well, it does have zombies). Instead of having the plucky couple fight off hordes of the flesh-eating monsters, it places side characters at the forefront of the action and uses Shakespeare's play as a backdrop.

The idea, which I describe as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead meets Shaun of the Dead, came about when I was attempting to teach R&J to freshman. After the character of Mercutio bites it in the third act, the hapless student who read for the character dropped the book and said something like, "Thank God, now I don't have to read anymore." My reply was along the lines of, "Yeah, unless he (Mercutio) comes back to life..." And then the lightbulb switched on.

However, I was only a student teacher at the time and there was no way I was going to be able to write a story, short or otherwise, during that time. But I kept it on the backburner, took some notes on ideas for the story (especially when reading it with students) and left it to simmer until the school year was over.

By the time school let out, the story had already gone through a number of changes (of which I'll discuss at length another time) in my head and I was ready to write). I typed, edited, and fact-checked the story, which took almost six months from start to finish.

I explain this in such length because I thought I had something truly special. That is, until a week and a half ago, when I was wandering around a Barnes & Noble, and happened upon a table of books with similar premises (taking a classic story and mixing it with classic monsters like zombies, vampires, sea monsters, etc.). While they're still not exactly the same, their very presence helps saturate the market and I feel the opportunity to get my story published may have closed.