![]() When the online campaign topped over a million signatures, Paramount agreed to a widespread release whereupon Paranormal Activity was propelled to the No 1 spot in only its second week of major release, beating all the big-budget studio releases. Peli was successfully able to wield interest in the film via a word of mouth campaign on where he pressed audiences to ‘demand’ the film – posters for the initial release in thirteen cities in September 2009 even went out embossed with the legend ‘Demand It’. After seeing that audiences were leaving spooked, Paramount Pictures agreed to several test screenings across the US. Throughout all this, Oren Peli persisted in trying to screen the existing film. The rights were snapped up and Oren Peli signed to direct a bigger budgeted remake of the original. In due course, a copy of the film found its way to DreamWorks where it purportedly unnerved Steven Spielberg. The film played at a handful of film festivals throughout 2007, including that year’s Slamdance Festival. Peli had no prior experience as a filmmaker and shot Paranormal Activity in 2006 on a $15,000 budget that he himself put together, converting his own home into the house where everything takes place. Paranormal Activity was made by Israeli-born videogame designer Oren Peli. Both films also highly effectively managed grassroots promotional campaigns that were enough to carry either film, both of which had been made by industry non-professionals on less than the smell of an oily rag, to the No 1 box-office spot in the US. ![]() (Unusually, Paranormal Activity doesn’t even have any end credits other than a copyright notice). Likewise, both films make scrupulous attempts to claim that what is going on is real, even down to the characters in the film being given the same names as the actors playing them. Both Blair Witch and Paranormal Activity were shot in very similar ways – using a small film crew and a group of novice actors who were largely allowed to improvise their dialogue. Like The Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity adopts a mockumentary approach, claiming to offer up real video footage of people being attacked by a ghostly force. It is impossible in commenting on Paranormal Activity to avoid making comparisons to The Blair Witch Project (1999).
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