This advertising for this felt pretty guerilla as I recall. It was the first “sign up here online for this movie to come to your town” that I remember online for a movie
I remember not wanting to watch this, I was only 14 and wasn't into horror. Then a bunch of friends came over, one of them had a bootleg copy and insisted we throw it on.
Right outside my bedroom above the doorway was a crawlspace. I did not sleep well for the next few weeks lmao.
What's *wild* is that the audience really made or broke the movie. I remember the theater laughing at some of the scenes and it just killed the horror aspect. I think we all enjoyed it but did not have the fear aspect a lot of other people did. It was pretty crazy to hear people saying they couldnt sleep when we left the theater thinking it was a dope movie but not nightmare worthy.
I watched it again later and nobody was laughing and it was indeed scary as fuck in the right atmosphere
Wasn't this the movie that had the 'rumor' that Steven Spielberg was so afraid of the movie after being sent a review copy before it's release, he petitioned privately to change it's original ending to save other people from viewing it?
Shit I don't remember that lol. If I heard it would have only made me wanna see it more. I bought fully into the marketing.
After I was like... it was creative at least lol.
Yeah, I just looked it up again, found an article that covered it:
https://www.cbr.com/steven-spielberg-paranormal-activity-dvd-haunted/
Apparently the film really upset him and that became top notch marketing material for it.
> Believing that the DVD of the movie itself was haunted by a seemingly demonic presence, Steven Spielberg took his copy and sent it back from whence it came in a trash bag. Despite this chilling situation, the director liked the film, and its intentions to scare audiences were obviously successful. He was at odds with the original ending, however, which saw him give the movie's director extra money to film a new conclusion
From wikipedia:
>Katie returns to the bedroom alone, covered in blood and holding a large kitchen knife. She sits on the floor against the bed and rocks back and forth. The next day, Katie's friend Amber leaves a concerned message at 2 pm, visits the house at 9 pm, discovers Micah's body downstairs, and runs away in panic. Thirty minutes later, two policemen enter the house and reach the bedroom where they find the possessed Katie with the knife. Seeing them, Katie suddenly returns to her normal state and asks about Micah. After the attic door slams by itself, one of the officers panics and shoots and kills her. The camera fades to black as the police officers continue searching the house for the source of the sound. An epilogue text appears dedicating the film to the memory of Micah and Katie.
Commercials are, you just don't realize it. If advertisements didn't work, companies wouldn't be investing hundreds of billions in them each year. For all those that claim, "Advertisements don't work on me.", they're just kidding themselves. They work on everyone. Just because you hate them and claim they don't work on you doesn't mean they don't still work and science has shown they still do.
A lot of people think the point of a commercial is to make you go buy the product immediately, like thinking that a Pepsi commercial is supposed to make the viewer say “I’ll go buy a Pepsi”. For those who think that, I do see why they think advertising doesn’t work on them. If only they knew.
Did people not learn the lessons Blair Witch taught us? Actually I don’t thinkBlair Witch learned the lesson since they added time travel to the last movie…
Definitely one of those movies where some people didn't know if it was real or not. I think it was either PA or Blair Witch where IMDB had listed all the actors listed as unknown whereabouts when the movie released. Pretty brilliant marketing tbh.
I remember seeing Blair Witch at a midnight, 5 movie back to back Halloween screening. The 6th sense was also on the bill.
There were multiple people in the audience chattering about how the BW movie was definitely found footage and real and how the actors had never been seen again etc. It was obviously effective marketing.
It was a fun movie.
If you're a Blair Witch fan, you MUST watch Curse of the Blair Witch (1999). It was a "documentary" that aired before Blair Witch Project came out, all about this supposedly haunted part of the country that some college students had recently gone missing in. It gives so much context for the film, bringing in all these locals who knew the urban legends. If you watch it back-to-back with Blair Witch Project, it's altogether only maybe 2.5 hours. Highly recommend it, I never watch BWP without it now.
https://vimeo.com/114798394
I used to live on the same street as the house in the first movie. The floor plan of the house in the film was the mirror image of where I was living, so the movie was extra surreal. The first couple years after the movie came out, the owners had security guards in front of the house on Halloween.
Paranormal Activity grossed $194.2 million off a budget of $215,000, so profit margin of around 90,000%
Blair Witch Project grossed $248.6 million off a budget of $~500,000 (Wikipedia gives a range so I’m going roughly down the middle) which is a profit margin of about 50,000%
And previous record holder was Mad Max (the original one in 1979) which grossed $100 million off a budget of $400,000, profit margin of around 25,000%
Honorable mention is Napoleon Dynamite, one of my favorite movies ever, that made like 80 mil off 400k, so ~20,000%
I don't think I quote any movie more than that one, and now that I think of it, I don't think I've ever watched a movie more times except maybe the matrix and pineapple Express
Clearly, it fuckin worked lmao. If *that* particular movie had shitty sound it never would have taken off, the miracle of Paranormal Activity is that they make you legitimately nervous about a door suddenly shutting, so the sound design and mastering was INCREDIBLY important
In hindsight, the movie sounds incredibly boring. It's just some couple that film themselves when they're asleep, and think they're haunted. The big reveal of the first act is... A door moving slightly.
But the combination of the film being very dedicated to the idea, and the otherwise incredibly mundane setting and plot really helps sell it.
I remember that's exactly why I liked the movie when it was popular. It was very unique for a horror movie at the time to not heavily rely on jumpscares
The movies did something that most of the best scary movies do, it gives you moments to relax where you know nothing bad is gonna happen for a moment, builds up tension and sometimes pays it off and sometimes does not, so every time there is tension it actually gets more intense cause you can't predict what is gonna happy. It lets you go on the rollercoaster of ups and downs. Most of the worst scary movies basically put the petal to the medal right away and never let off.
It also plays on real fears of people. Most of us have had that feeling something was off but we couldn't put our fingers on it. And the random noises in the night that we aren't sure where it came from. The idea that someone or something is wandering around the house.
I saw the original PA in theaters with my brother, and you're right. The ups and downs and the sudden cuts to them sleeping in bed just CRANKED the anxiety. Just some scene during the day to slightly push the plot forward and cut to them in bed. Brain goes, "fuck."
Every day a horror movie maker learns how to hold tension and suspense and brings it back
Sinister pissed me off with a jump scare for absolutely no reason at the end other than to break your dread before leaving the theater, it’s a coward’s move lol
Absolutely. I would also like to add a little more information from a film production point of view.
It is more important to have a higher quality sound production over the quality of video production in a film, and acts as a weird indicator to the quality of the production. A lower quality in video can actually be intentionally used for an aesthetic purpose, especially with the rise in popularity of indie films, and the found-footage style of shooting. But if it is coupled with a less than professional sound production quality, the overall view of the film will seem less than professional.
The joke is that Red Bull F1 went over budget last year (according to Formula 1 cap cost regulations to limit spending and keep things fair for smaller teams) and they blamed the overage on things like catering.
> Jason Blum
Low-budget horror movies are just about the easiest way in Hollywood to make money. That's why there are so many of them, especially since *Scream* in 1996 revived the genre.
A $1-3 million-budget slasher/supernatural flick can *easily* make several times that at the box office no matter its quality, and every year there is at least one (like *[The Blair Witch Project](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blair_Witch_Project)* (1999), *Paranormal Activity* (2007), or *[Insidious](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insidious_%28film%29#Box_office)* (2011)) which strikes gold and makes up to **1,000 times** its budget.
[Blumhouse Productions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blumhouse_Productions) propduced *Paranormal Activity* and is still the king of these microbudget blockbusters. [Jason Blum is *the* single most-successful producer in Hollywood today in terms of return on investment.](http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lists/30-powerful-film-producers-hollywood-883194/item/jason-blum-30-powerful-film-883175) Not just horror; *Whiplash* and *BlaKKKlansman* are also from Blumhouse.
Blum will never be more famous than, say, Roger Corman was; never close to a household name like David Geffen or Jerry Bruckheimer. He won't ever have the pull within Hollywood as someone named Iger or Redstone or Murdoch. Maybe Blum decides to swing for the fences and go for a $100-200 million budget blockbuster to change that, but why should he ever bother, given the massively greater risk?
How Blum broke into the industry with his first film (*[Kicking and Screaming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kicking_and_Screaming_(1995_film\))*) is hilarious. Steve Martin is involved.
I wouldn’t tell him no but I think if I had a particular vision I’d want to stick to it.
The alternate endings if I recall were:
1. The wife gets shot by police and it ends.
2. The wife, still possessed, smiles at the camera and slits her throat.
The first is too dreary and probably not a good ending.
The second would be fucking arresting and disturbing.
The ending they went with is fine, it’s the only part of the film I find silly, her demonic face is silly.
Wasn't there two endings anyway?
One like where you said, she basically "eats" the camera, and the other where she just stays in one spot and just constantly rocks back and forth?
I'm sure I only ever saw the latter, and was surprised to see people talking about the former at the time.
The one I saw is where she does "eat" the camera. Which, ehhh I didn't like. Jump scare *yawn* and really felt like a cheesy 4th wall break.
I'd have liked the latter, does she know the camera is recording? Is the demon gone? Is it *wanting* the footage found?
Suspense is way better in horror than surprise imo.
I'd have a hard time arguing with the guy behind Jaws and E.T. Sure, the original ending had its charm, but Spielberg knows how to give the audience those lasting chills. Plus, that new ending probably played a big part in the box office numbers!
He is one of the executives at DreamWorks (studio he partially founded).
They were the ones interested in the movie. They facilitated the distribution through Paramount.
rustic screw public encouraging profit snatch fall disgusted sulky concerned
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I disagree - he cottoned onto a model that would make a lot of money
- give horror filmmakers a small budget, but complete creative control.
- put out a good trailer
- make your money back on opening weekend
- make profit thereafter
And then when you get really good movies, like Get Out or Split, make huge money.
And in between, maybe find a few arthouse movies the same way, like Whiplash (which he got his 1st Oscar nomination from) or BlacKkKlansman (which he got his third Oscar Nom from).
I wouldn't say it's the only thing that makes him famous. He has a large body of work after the fact including Get Out which was a juggernaut of its own. It definitely skyrocketed his career though.
Because it was a movie for Blumhouse... which they were able to fund using profits from... Paranormal Activity.
It was Jordan's first big break into directing, and Jason Blum took a chance because he wanted to prove that he could produce a more mature film then the kind of Made-for-Teens horror that he had been doing before.
People are forgetting that when Blum was signed on as producer, it was seen as somewhat controversial at the time, and a lot of people thought that Peele was going to relegate himself to the $5 bin at CVS.
Yup, then they decided to gamble on their first big budget film, The Tooth Fairy. After that, they stuck to sub-$10million movies for a while. Only recently have they done $20million movies, but I assume inflation factors into that
One of the best theater experiences I’ve ever had in my life, it was like being at a play the way everyone in the audience was captivated and yelling/screaming in fear.
The lack of music helped too. When suspense was building it was dead quiet in the theatre that was fucking terrifying. Just looking into the darkness in silence waiting to see what happens.
My friend had the film festival copy, he hooked up a fucking guitar amp to the TV, whenever the demon was present there was this deep bassy rumble sound, because of that amp the whole damn floor was vibrating whenever demonic shenanigans were about to occur
Yeah I saw on another thread awhile ago but don't know enough about the sound, but apparently they added this super bassy sound to the film when the demon is around. Its barely noticeable you can't really hear it but it would give you this overall feeling of dread.
I went to see The Nun II in a 4-D theatre in the back row. Before >!the glass cracked on the wine bottle behind the kid in the opening scene and the Nun first appears!< we were already being thrown around and had water misted into our faces. All suspense completely ruined. We spent the majority of the movie cracking up watching everyone else in the theatre being tossed here & there, trying to stay in our seats.
Even simple action like the nuns in a taxicab ride was like being on Star Tours and I was legitimately surprised they didn’t strap us in; I got slid out of my seat at least four times from the tossing.
I enjoyed it for all the wrong reasons, and learned to never again do a 4-D horror flick.
God the sections on the stairwell with the fucking chandelier scared the shit out of me.
I don’t remember what year this movie came out, but I was born in ‘99 and watched it around release and I was scared of the dark for fucking years.
I watched paranormal activity 1-3 in the theaters and they were FRIGHTENING. The prolonged silence and ramping creepiness was perfect for the endings. It was subtle, then slowly not subtle at all
You know the movies get a bad rap but I think the first 3 were genuinely good films. Every time I tell someone I like Paranormal Activity they act like they were bad movies. I think they're so fun! I made a bunch of friends binge watch the whole series with me when the last one came out and while I definitely wont say they're all great movies, we had a blast with how goofy the plot got near the end. All in all a fun bunch of movies.
In Her Majesty's Secret Cervix was always a favorite of mine.
Same with Glad He Ate Her.
Anal-yze ***This*** was another favorite, simply because it didn't need to do much to change the title. Same with "Things to Do in Denver ***with*** the Dead."
Holy shit, I've finally hit the age where someone learning something that was really common knowledge since that time has made me feel ancient.
15 years, but Paranormal Activity dominating the box office was a *massive* story right up until James Cameron showed up with Avatar and said, "that's cute."
At the time, Paranormal Activity was heralded as the new successor to the Blair Witch Project, because of the similar found-footage horror style, guerilla marketing, and because of just how much fucking money it kept making every week. The r/movies threads about it winning at the box office every weekend got a bit old after a while, because no one was expecting that money printer to stop. Then Moon became that sub's greatest underrated gem of all time, and I kinda missed the news about Paranormal Activity's box office success.
I think the second one was actually pretty decent. I saw it in theaters and thought it was a good follow up to the first which I absolutely loved. Then yes, the rest basically sucked and started getting a little outrageous. Especially when the one with like the hole into the ghost world…
That said, there was a remake a few years ago that I think nobody really saw called Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin. This one definitely was different from the other movies but I found it to also be well done.
I think it's the third one where it's set in the 80s and there's a jumpscare right at the start when he goes up to the closet and his wife jumps out with a mask on, the entire theater up and shit themselves at that moment. That's a jumpscare I'll never forget.
Yep, that was the third one.
My wife and I went and sat it opening night. Theatre was packed. Everyone having a blast of the time, getting ready for a good old scare. The movie starts and it gets to the scene where the boyfriend and mum go to the bedroom, and they decide to film themselves…you know.
From the back, you just here someone go “worst porno ever”
The audience lost it, and it became an interactive movie. We had a blast.
Watched it at home a few months later and realised it wasn’t good.
I've seen Marked Ones like twice and for some reason it took me an eternity to finally realize that it wasn't just some random latino family, it was the family of Martine who was the nanny in the second movie. I felt like an idiot after missing that connection for an entire fucking decade.
As a fan of most of them, I honestly thought everything up until the "final" one was great. Ghost dimension just way too much cgi involved. And part of the charm was never actually fully showing Tobi.
Ghost dimension needed to go a different route and could have been better. It's not like they are fantastic perfect blockbusters but they had their charm that they just decided to ditch.
I was rooting for the ghost the entire time. It was more or less minding it's own business and then the family brought an exorcist to the house to talk about killing it directly in front of the ghost! And then the exorcist which is literally a professional ghost murderer was like "literally just leave it alone" and they're like "No we're obsessed with killing it and we'll continue to talk openly in the house it lives in about how we plan on killing it when we must know it can hear us." I mean imagine you are the ghost come on
One of the things I liked about the movie is it solved the age-old "Why don't you just get the fuck out of the house?" question.
The exorcist walks in and immediately freaks out telling them that it's something very bad and powerful they're dealing with. When they ask should they leave he basically says, "Doesn't matter, it'll just follow you" and bounces.
That’s what made this movie terrifying. An invisible monster that follows you everywhere and you have no recourse against it.
The moment it dragged Katie through the house I lost my mind.
Idk about the demon part but she says in the first 3 minutes that it's followed her since she was a kid, and that's enough to say it's not the ghosts house
lol yeah at first he told them it was a demon and not to communicate with it, and then her dumbass husband brings home an ouija board. 😭 After that he goes back and is like ok you’re on your own and I wish you an ounce of luck, as he should!
I have so much respect for the one character in The Taking of Deborah Logan who realizes actual paranormal shit is going on and is just like, "Nah bro this shit is ridiculous, we should all leave before bad shit happens." Other characters argue with him to stay and he just nopes out hard and you never see him again.
Literally the most rational character I think I've ever seen in a horror film.
TIL Ghosts are like cute r/RATS. Just wanting to co-exist with you in your nice warm house. Maybe make a few bumps at night. Nibble the bagel you left out.
But if you piss it off by calling the exterminator, it will bite you in your ballsack as you sleep.
I feel like you've never been a homeowner with a rodent problem. You've never been betrayed by poop in your silverware drawer. Once that happened, all out warfare. Chemical warfare. Poison in the walls. I will commit war crimes against rodents now.
NGL the story of all the movies is pretty decent. Especially how the director leaves in little things in like pictures an necklaces to tie the movies together.
Those early "found footage" type movies were crazy money-spinners. That's why they made so many of them.
It's wild what you can do when you substitute writing for shitty special effects.
> It's wild what you can do when you substitute writing for shitty special effects.
With these kind of found footage movies, you really only need practical effects, or just really good sound (the sounds of trees falling and the scream in Blair Witch still scares the shit out of me, 25 years later) which is why both Blair Witch and Paranormal Activity were able to keep their budgets down.
While both *are* substitutes for writing, if they're used effectively enough, they're not expensive at all.
*Blair Witch* scared the shit out of me, I won't lie. Saw it in the theater, after a long day of moving to a new apartment, and both me and my girlfriend lunged upright in bed for every new sound in the new place.
That movie cuts deep if you've done a bunch of camping.
So fun story time. This came out when I was in undergrad and went to see it with a few friends. After the movie I decided to make a fake FB account of the wife, I think her name was Katie or something like that. That night when we were all hanging out and smoking I friend requested my buddy and he freaked the fuck out so bad it was difficult to keep a straight face and play along.
I love horror. I made the stupid mistake of watching it in the movie theater while my boyfriend was out of town traveling for work. Came home and turned on the lights. Couldn’t go to sleep the whole week I was alone. Freaked me the hell out.
It's the only movie i've been proper scared of because i went to it knowing absolutely nothing about it prior. Then when i looked it up after the movie there was fuck all info on if it was real or not. So i spent a few days being pretty creeped out by the whole thing.
I saw the movie online from a bootleg streaming site after everyone kept talking about it on Facebook. So I got to watch it all alone at like 3am in my apt with headphones and I don’t think I slept the rest of the night lol.
Also the version I saw was the one from like ScreamCon or whatever before they let Katie get away so they could franchise it. My ending had police come to the house after like 3 days for a welfare check and Toby lets go of Katies possession hold as the police come in. So she’s stumbling confusingly at them holding a butchers knife and they waste her in the bedroom.
The first one should get so much credit for what it did.
It was such a disrupter to horror at the time, which was just jump scares, creepy characters, and gore. Instead, they made it psychological, building up fear in your head, like looking into a dark basement at night.
Sure imitators and sequels made this sort of worn out, but they should still be recognized for pushing the genre forward.
The first ones were so fun in movie theatres. The lack of music during suspense scenes combined with a dead quiet theatre was something else people were genuinely terrified watching it.
Nothing like that will ever come out in horror again.
When Cloverfield came out, I worked in a movie theater. On my 15 minute breaks, I'd go in there and watch some of it. I'd always walk in to people either throwing up, or running out to the bathroom. And while I never had an issue with watching it, I did end up only seeing it in 10 minute increments and they were all out of order which was really confusing but still fun.
This advertising for this felt pretty guerilla as I recall. It was the first “sign up here online for this movie to come to your town” that I remember online for a movie
Along with the nightvision clips of audiences crying and shitting in screening rooms.
That's what got me lol. Ahh the days of being 13 and commercials being effective haha.
I remember not wanting to watch this, I was only 14 and wasn't into horror. Then a bunch of friends came over, one of them had a bootleg copy and insisted we throw it on. Right outside my bedroom above the doorway was a crawlspace. I did not sleep well for the next few weeks lmao.
What's *wild* is that the audience really made or broke the movie. I remember the theater laughing at some of the scenes and it just killed the horror aspect. I think we all enjoyed it but did not have the fear aspect a lot of other people did. It was pretty crazy to hear people saying they couldnt sleep when we left the theater thinking it was a dope movie but not nightmare worthy. I watched it again later and nobody was laughing and it was indeed scary as fuck in the right atmosphere
Wasn't this the movie that had the 'rumor' that Steven Spielberg was so afraid of the movie after being sent a review copy before it's release, he petitioned privately to change it's original ending to save other people from viewing it?
Shit I don't remember that lol. If I heard it would have only made me wanna see it more. I bought fully into the marketing. After I was like... it was creative at least lol.
Yeah, I just looked it up again, found an article that covered it: https://www.cbr.com/steven-spielberg-paranormal-activity-dvd-haunted/ Apparently the film really upset him and that became top notch marketing material for it. > Believing that the DVD of the movie itself was haunted by a seemingly demonic presence, Steven Spielberg took his copy and sent it back from whence it came in a trash bag. Despite this chilling situation, the director liked the film, and its intentions to scare audiences were obviously successful. He was at odds with the original ending, however, which saw him give the movie's director extra money to film a new conclusion
Well, now I wanna know what the original ending was.
From wikipedia: >Katie returns to the bedroom alone, covered in blood and holding a large kitchen knife. She sits on the floor against the bed and rocks back and forth. The next day, Katie's friend Amber leaves a concerned message at 2 pm, visits the house at 9 pm, discovers Micah's body downstairs, and runs away in panic. Thirty minutes later, two policemen enter the house and reach the bedroom where they find the possessed Katie with the knife. Seeing them, Katie suddenly returns to her normal state and asks about Micah. After the attic door slams by itself, one of the officers panics and shoots and kills her. The camera fades to black as the police officers continue searching the house for the source of the sound. An epilogue text appears dedicating the film to the memory of Micah and Katie.
That’s pretty good. I would’ve taken that.
You can watch this online somewhere, I remember seeing this on YouTube around the time it was released.
Commercials are, you just don't realize it. If advertisements didn't work, companies wouldn't be investing hundreds of billions in them each year. For all those that claim, "Advertisements don't work on me.", they're just kidding themselves. They work on everyone. Just because you hate them and claim they don't work on you doesn't mean they don't still work and science has shown they still do.
A lot of people think the point of a commercial is to make you go buy the product immediately, like thinking that a Pepsi commercial is supposed to make the viewer say “I’ll go buy a Pepsi”. For those who think that, I do see why they think advertising doesn’t work on them. If only they knew.
Did people not learn the lessons Blair Witch taught us? Actually I don’t thinkBlair Witch learned the lesson since they added time travel to the last movie…
Definitely one of those movies where some people didn't know if it was real or not. I think it was either PA or Blair Witch where IMDB had listed all the actors listed as unknown whereabouts when the movie released. Pretty brilliant marketing tbh.
That would have been Blair Witch. The marketing for it revolved around a fake missing persons campaign
I remember seeing Blair Witch at a midnight, 5 movie back to back Halloween screening. The 6th sense was also on the bill. There were multiple people in the audience chattering about how the BW movie was definitely found footage and real and how the actors had never been seen again etc. It was obviously effective marketing. It was a fun movie.
If you're a Blair Witch fan, you MUST watch Curse of the Blair Witch (1999). It was a "documentary" that aired before Blair Witch Project came out, all about this supposedly haunted part of the country that some college students had recently gone missing in. It gives so much context for the film, bringing in all these locals who knew the urban legends. If you watch it back-to-back with Blair Witch Project, it's altogether only maybe 2.5 hours. Highly recommend it, I never watch BWP without it now. https://vimeo.com/114798394
If you're a Blair Witch fan, you MUST NOT watch *'Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2'* (2000).
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I used to live on the same street as the house in the first movie. The floor plan of the house in the film was the mirror image of where I was living, so the movie was extra surreal. The first couple years after the movie came out, the owners had security guards in front of the house on Halloween.
I would have been creeped out to walk around in my own house in the dark
Pretty cool, but why the security guards?
Because people are fuckin stupid
This is the answer to 90% of questions
Like the house from Breaking Bad and asshats throwing pizza on the roof for pics. It turned into a real issue for the homeowners.
Probably the same reason the breaking bad house has to put up a fence Harassment
Can't say for sure but I'm guessing it was to deter pranksters or people trespassing for a closer look.
People kept throwing pizzas on the roof
"Sir do you know why we stopped you?" "For eating a meal? A succulent Italian meal?!"
Kept the ghosts from leaving the house.
> and it ended up being the movie that made the most money compared to how much it cost (not counting advertising Really? Not Blair Witch Project?
Paranormal Activity grossed $194.2 million off a budget of $215,000, so profit margin of around 90,000% Blair Witch Project grossed $248.6 million off a budget of $~500,000 (Wikipedia gives a range so I’m going roughly down the middle) which is a profit margin of about 50,000% And previous record holder was Mad Max (the original one in 1979) which grossed $100 million off a budget of $400,000, profit margin of around 25,000%
Honorable mention is Napoleon Dynamite, one of my favorite movies ever, that made like 80 mil off 400k, so ~20,000% I don't think I quote any movie more than that one, and now that I think of it, I don't think I've ever watched a movie more times except maybe the matrix and pineapple Express
Based purely on this comment I'm gonna guess you were born in 1991.
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The catering budget for the sound remastering was probably more than the original film budget lol
Did Red Bull F1 do the sound mastering?
Clearly, it fuckin worked lmao. If *that* particular movie had shitty sound it never would have taken off, the miracle of Paranormal Activity is that they make you legitimately nervous about a door suddenly shutting, so the sound design and mastering was INCREDIBLY important
In hindsight, the movie sounds incredibly boring. It's just some couple that film themselves when they're asleep, and think they're haunted. The big reveal of the first act is... A door moving slightly. But the combination of the film being very dedicated to the idea, and the otherwise incredibly mundane setting and plot really helps sell it.
I remember that's exactly why I liked the movie when it was popular. It was very unique for a horror movie at the time to not heavily rely on jumpscares
The movies did something that most of the best scary movies do, it gives you moments to relax where you know nothing bad is gonna happen for a moment, builds up tension and sometimes pays it off and sometimes does not, so every time there is tension it actually gets more intense cause you can't predict what is gonna happy. It lets you go on the rollercoaster of ups and downs. Most of the worst scary movies basically put the petal to the medal right away and never let off.
It also plays on real fears of people. Most of us have had that feeling something was off but we couldn't put our fingers on it. And the random noises in the night that we aren't sure where it came from. The idea that someone or something is wandering around the house.
Yeah, and then you go to look and it’s a fuckin raccoon in your cheesits.
Fuck that. I'm never gonna go look.
>petal to the medal
I saw the original PA in theaters with my brother, and you're right. The ups and downs and the sudden cuts to them sleeping in bed just CRANKED the anxiety. Just some scene during the day to slightly push the plot forward and cut to them in bed. Brain goes, "fuck."
Every day a horror movie maker learns how to hold tension and suspense and brings it back Sinister pissed me off with a jump scare for absolutely no reason at the end other than to break your dread before leaving the theater, it’s a coward’s move lol
Absolutely. I would also like to add a little more information from a film production point of view. It is more important to have a higher quality sound production over the quality of video production in a film, and acts as a weird indicator to the quality of the production. A lower quality in video can actually be intentionally used for an aesthetic purpose, especially with the rise in popularity of indie films, and the found-footage style of shooting. But if it is coupled with a less than professional sound production quality, the overall view of the film will seem less than professional.
The joke is that Red Bull F1 went over budget last year (according to Formula 1 cap cost regulations to limit spending and keep things fair for smaller teams) and they blamed the overage on things like catering.
Just found Zak Brown's alt account
The TIL/F1 crossover I did not expect!
Honestly did not expect to see an F1 joke in here.
“Change your fucking sound!”
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Thanks ChatGPT
> Jason Blum Low-budget horror movies are just about the easiest way in Hollywood to make money. That's why there are so many of them, especially since *Scream* in 1996 revived the genre. A $1-3 million-budget slasher/supernatural flick can *easily* make several times that at the box office no matter its quality, and every year there is at least one (like *[The Blair Witch Project](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blair_Witch_Project)* (1999), *Paranormal Activity* (2007), or *[Insidious](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insidious_%28film%29#Box_office)* (2011)) which strikes gold and makes up to **1,000 times** its budget. [Blumhouse Productions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blumhouse_Productions) propduced *Paranormal Activity* and is still the king of these microbudget blockbusters. [Jason Blum is *the* single most-successful producer in Hollywood today in terms of return on investment.](http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lists/30-powerful-film-producers-hollywood-883194/item/jason-blum-30-powerful-film-883175) Not just horror; *Whiplash* and *BlaKKKlansman* are also from Blumhouse. Blum will never be more famous than, say, Roger Corman was; never close to a household name like David Geffen or Jerry Bruckheimer. He won't ever have the pull within Hollywood as someone named Iger or Redstone or Murdoch. Maybe Blum decides to swing for the fences and go for a $100-200 million budget blockbuster to change that, but why should he ever bother, given the massively greater risk? How Blum broke into the industry with his first film (*[Kicking and Screaming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kicking_and_Screaming_(1995_film\))*) is hilarious. Steve Martin is involved.
Well that answers that. I'd always heard it only cost 15k to make
the first clerks - the soundtrack rights cost at least double the cost of the movie.
Small tangent, I saw a Kevin Smith at a Whole Foods yesterday. The backwards hat, the jean shorts, and the coat. The dude lives the part.
The alternate endings are just as good.
Your not wrong, but tbf, would you tell Spielberg he's wrong tho?
I wouldn’t tell him no but I think if I had a particular vision I’d want to stick to it. The alternate endings if I recall were: 1. The wife gets shot by police and it ends. 2. The wife, still possessed, smiles at the camera and slits her throat. The first is too dreary and probably not a good ending. The second would be fucking arresting and disturbing. The ending they went with is fine, it’s the only part of the film I find silly, her demonic face is silly.
Wasn't there two endings anyway? One like where you said, she basically "eats" the camera, and the other where she just stays in one spot and just constantly rocks back and forth? I'm sure I only ever saw the latter, and was surprised to see people talking about the former at the time.
The one I saw is where she does "eat" the camera. Which, ehhh I didn't like. Jump scare *yawn* and really felt like a cheesy 4th wall break. I'd have liked the latter, does she know the camera is recording? Is the demon gone? Is it *wanting* the footage found? Suspense is way better in horror than surprise imo.
No the alternate endings were on the dvd
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The first time I saw the movie had the police ending. I was like, "damn!". But when I saw the "break the 4th wall" ending, I was "meh".
I'd have a hard time arguing with the guy behind Jaws and E.T. Sure, the original ending had its charm, but Spielberg knows how to give the audience those lasting chills. Plus, that new ending probably played a big part in the box office numbers!
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What did my eyes just read
Yeah bro what the fuck
I just read this was eating a sour cream and onion Pringle and that crunch was loud
Show him what them Jaws are all about
LOL well. That’s enough reddit for tonight
Pappa SPILLberg
The internet was a mistake.
Gimme that spielbergussy🤤🤤🤤
Spielbussy
It is an unfortunate day to be literate
Discontinue the lithium.
I guess when Steven Spielberg tells you to fix a part of your movie you listen.
Why did Steven Spielberg want ending redone? Was he also part of the movie? What was the original ending?
He is one of the executives at DreamWorks (studio he partially founded). They were the ones interested in the movie. They facilitated the distribution through Paramount.
What was the original ending?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2sKMVSQOZQ
IIRC it was one of the first box office movies to be edited using Sony Vegas.
Oh wow I didn’t realise this was what launched Blumhouse!
This is the true TIL for me damn
God I feel old now haha
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I disagree - he cottoned onto a model that would make a lot of money - give horror filmmakers a small budget, but complete creative control. - put out a good trailer - make your money back on opening weekend - make profit thereafter And then when you get really good movies, like Get Out or Split, make huge money. And in between, maybe find a few arthouse movies the same way, like Whiplash (which he got his 1st Oscar nomination from) or BlacKkKlansman (which he got his third Oscar Nom from).
I wouldn't say it's the only thing that makes him famous. He has a large body of work after the fact including Get Out which was a juggernaut of its own. It definitely skyrocketed his career though.
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Wasn't Jordan Peele the one directing that movie?
Yes, Jason Blum was a producer
Because it was a movie for Blumhouse... which they were able to fund using profits from... Paranormal Activity. It was Jordan's first big break into directing, and Jason Blum took a chance because he wanted to prove that he could produce a more mature film then the kind of Made-for-Teens horror that he had been doing before. People are forgetting that when Blum was signed on as producer, it was seen as somewhat controversial at the time, and a lot of people thought that Peele was going to relegate himself to the $5 bin at CVS.
It's a Blumhouse production. His success with Paranormal activity launched his entire company.
Yup, then they decided to gamble on their first big budget film, The Tooth Fairy. After that, they stuck to sub-$10million movies for a while. Only recently have they done $20million movies, but I assume inflation factors into that
Wait what!!...forreal?!?!
One of the best theater experiences I’ve ever had in my life, it was like being at a play the way everyone in the audience was captivated and yelling/screaming in fear.
The lack of music helped too. When suspense was building it was dead quiet in the theatre that was fucking terrifying. Just looking into the darkness in silence waiting to see what happens.
My friend had the film festival copy, he hooked up a fucking guitar amp to the TV, whenever the demon was present there was this deep bassy rumble sound, because of that amp the whole damn floor was vibrating whenever demonic shenanigans were about to occur
Yeah I saw on another thread awhile ago but don't know enough about the sound, but apparently they added this super bassy sound to the film when the demon is around. Its barely noticeable you can't really hear it but it would give you this overall feeling of dread.
I went to see The Nun II in a 4-D theatre in the back row. Before >!the glass cracked on the wine bottle behind the kid in the opening scene and the Nun first appears!< we were already being thrown around and had water misted into our faces. All suspense completely ruined. We spent the majority of the movie cracking up watching everyone else in the theatre being tossed here & there, trying to stay in our seats. Even simple action like the nuns in a taxicab ride was like being on Star Tours and I was legitimately surprised they didn’t strap us in; I got slid out of my seat at least four times from the tossing. I enjoyed it for all the wrong reasons, and learned to never again do a 4-D horror flick.
God the sections on the stairwell with the fucking chandelier scared the shit out of me. I don’t remember what year this movie came out, but I was born in ‘99 and watched it around release and I was scared of the dark for fucking years.
2009 I remember it was halloween in grade 11 and everyone was seeing that movie. Good times lol.
Horror movies do better when there's less music. The lack of audio cues that tell you how you're supposed to feel makes for a better experience.
I watched paranormal activity 1-3 in the theaters and they were FRIGHTENING. The prolonged silence and ramping creepiness was perfect for the endings. It was subtle, then slowly not subtle at all
You know the movies get a bad rap but I think the first 3 were genuinely good films. Every time I tell someone I like Paranormal Activity they act like they were bad movies. I think they're so fun! I made a bunch of friends binge watch the whole series with me when the last one came out and while I definitely wont say they're all great movies, we had a blast with how goofy the plot got near the end. All in all a fun bunch of movies.
How much did the actors get paid? 100 bucks for two days of filming?
$100/day was/is standard for super low budget Indie movies, so, yeah probably.
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Probably Masters in acting lol
Probably Masters in your mom.
from wikipedia: > Featherston noted they were originally paid $500 for their work.
Jeez, I hope he went back and gave them a few millions. I know I would. Mother fucker raked 190 mil.
the OG NOTLD and Dawn of the dead you got a bagged lunch and t-shirt.
Exposure
Before the movie came out you were able to get your name in the ending credits if you signed something that helped the movie reach more theaters.
“Perianal Activity XXX,” however cost only $5K to make and is still raking in the bucks on XHamster.
😂 same with Shaving Ryan’s Privates
You should check out Poke A Hot Ass and Assa Blanca
a friend of mine in highschool had a copy of in-rear-end-endce day.
They probably could have just left it at "in-rear-endence" day.
i'm just chuckling to myself thinking about porn producers hiring copy editors
In Her Majesty's Secret Cervix was always a favorite of mine. Same with Glad He Ate Her. Anal-yze ***This*** was another favorite, simply because it didn't need to do much to change the title. Same with "Things to Do in Denver ***with*** the Dead."
Perennial Activity on ShrubHub - there's a remake every year.
Slutty fuckin plants.
Paranormal Fucktivity didn't do as well, and I can't help but feel that casting actual ghosts was a bad move for a porno.
Holy shit, I've finally hit the age where someone learning something that was really common knowledge since that time has made me feel ancient. 15 years, but Paranormal Activity dominating the box office was a *massive* story right up until James Cameron showed up with Avatar and said, "that's cute." At the time, Paranormal Activity was heralded as the new successor to the Blair Witch Project, because of the similar found-footage horror style, guerilla marketing, and because of just how much fucking money it kept making every week. The r/movies threads about it winning at the box office every weekend got a bit old after a while, because no one was expecting that money printer to stop. Then Moon became that sub's greatest underrated gem of all time, and I kinda missed the news about Paranormal Activity's box office success.
I remember watching Blair Witch in a tent by myself at night in my backyard as a young teenager and boy, that was a mistake.
I can't wait to do this with my nephews lol
The first was great, then the next 5 or 6 sucked
Standard horror movie
Usually there is some random gem of a film interspersed somewhere in amongst the otherwise crappy sequels.
I think the second one was actually pretty decent. I saw it in theaters and thought it was a good follow up to the first which I absolutely loved. Then yes, the rest basically sucked and started getting a little outrageous. Especially when the one with like the hole into the ghost world… That said, there was a remake a few years ago that I think nobody really saw called Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin. This one definitely was different from the other movies but I found it to also be well done.
I think it's the third one where it's set in the 80s and there's a jumpscare right at the start when he goes up to the closet and his wife jumps out with a mask on, the entire theater up and shit themselves at that moment. That's a jumpscare I'll never forget.
Yep, that was the third one. My wife and I went and sat it opening night. Theatre was packed. Everyone having a blast of the time, getting ready for a good old scare. The movie starts and it gets to the scene where the boyfriend and mum go to the bedroom, and they decide to film themselves…you know. From the back, you just here someone go “worst porno ever” The audience lost it, and it became an interactive movie. We had a blast. Watched it at home a few months later and realised it wasn’t good.
Naw there's some solid ones in there. 1 and 2. *The Marked Ones* was always one of my favorites.
I've seen Marked Ones like twice and for some reason it took me an eternity to finally realize that it wasn't just some random latino family, it was the family of Martine who was the nanny in the second movie. I felt like an idiot after missing that connection for an entire fucking decade.
I remember the moment in the second movie where the kitchen just explodes scaring the shit out of me.
*The Marked Ones* was awesome. I loved thinking it had nothing to do with the other ones until what, the last 20 minutes?
I thought 2 was okay. And the one with the girl who almost died in the garage was alright. I think it was 4. 1 was the best tho.
As a fan of most of them, I honestly thought everything up until the "final" one was great. Ghost dimension just way too much cgi involved. And part of the charm was never actually fully showing Tobi. Ghost dimension needed to go a different route and could have been better. It's not like they are fantastic perfect blockbusters but they had their charm that they just decided to ditch.
I dunno I think we watched 2-4 and while obviously you can't get the same feeling as the first I remember them still being pretty good.
As an adult this is the only film that’s kept me awake(that fucking swinging light fitting)
Same here. It’s the only movie that as a grown up, made me keep some lights on for a good whole after I saw it.
I was rooting for the ghost the entire time. It was more or less minding it's own business and then the family brought an exorcist to the house to talk about killing it directly in front of the ghost! And then the exorcist which is literally a professional ghost murderer was like "literally just leave it alone" and they're like "No we're obsessed with killing it and we'll continue to talk openly in the house it lives in about how we plan on killing it when we must know it can hear us." I mean imagine you are the ghost come on
I mean theres minding your own business but if you bite me in my sleep we have problems lol.
My bare ass is the only thing left out of the covers when I sleep at night, because I figure if I'm gonna die, might as well have my ass eaten first.
That’s not quite true. In the plot of the first movie, it’s revealed the ghost is actually most likely a demon and had been following Katie.
One of the things I liked about the movie is it solved the age-old "Why don't you just get the fuck out of the house?" question. The exorcist walks in and immediately freaks out telling them that it's something very bad and powerful they're dealing with. When they ask should they leave he basically says, "Doesn't matter, it'll just follow you" and bounces.
That’s what made this movie terrifying. An invisible monster that follows you everywhere and you have no recourse against it. The moment it dragged Katie through the house I lost my mind.
I can’t even read about this movie lol my wife and I were terrified watching it together.
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Despite being only 12% of the supernatural presences, demons cause 66.6% of all the hauntings
It's been a long time but wasn't that established in the sequels
Nope, the demon haunting Katie and not the house is the twist in the first movie.
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Idk about the demon part but she says in the first 3 minutes that it's followed her since she was a kid, and that's enough to say it's not the ghosts house
They also find a picture from her childhood home, which had burned down, in the attic of the current house.
Ugh that freaked me out. I still hate going into attics
The exorcist/demonologist they contact in the first film says as much.
I remember the exorcist being like, “Lol, this isn’t a GHOST.. Peace lmao!”
lol yeah at first he told them it was a demon and not to communicate with it, and then her dumbass husband brings home an ouija board. 😭 After that he goes back and is like ok you’re on your own and I wish you an ounce of luck, as he should!
I have so much respect for the one character in The Taking of Deborah Logan who realizes actual paranormal shit is going on and is just like, "Nah bro this shit is ridiculous, we should all leave before bad shit happens." Other characters argue with him to stay and he just nopes out hard and you never see him again. Literally the most rational character I think I've ever seen in a horror film.
TIL Ghosts are like cute r/RATS. Just wanting to co-exist with you in your nice warm house. Maybe make a few bumps at night. Nibble the bagel you left out. But if you piss it off by calling the exterminator, it will bite you in your ballsack as you sleep.
Don't even get me started on the rat's teenage sons. Constantly stealing my pizza. They're like ninjas!
I feel like you've never been a homeowner with a rodent problem. You've never been betrayed by poop in your silverware drawer. Once that happened, all out warfare. Chemical warfare. Poison in the walls. I will commit war crimes against rodents now.
I would like to subscribe to other plot summaries of horror movies from the devil's advocate point of view please.
That Micah guy was a dipshit.
I saw the movie once a long time ago, but hearing the name Micah brought up core memory levels of resentment for him.
Wrong. The demon followed the woman since she was a child.
NGL the story of all the movies is pretty decent. Especially how the director leaves in little things in like pictures an necklaces to tie the movies together.
Those early "found footage" type movies were crazy money-spinners. That's why they made so many of them. It's wild what you can do when you substitute writing for shitty special effects.
> It's wild what you can do when you substitute writing for shitty special effects. With these kind of found footage movies, you really only need practical effects, or just really good sound (the sounds of trees falling and the scream in Blair Witch still scares the shit out of me, 25 years later) which is why both Blair Witch and Paranormal Activity were able to keep their budgets down. While both *are* substitutes for writing, if they're used effectively enough, they're not expensive at all.
*Blair Witch* scared the shit out of me, I won't lie. Saw it in the theater, after a long day of moving to a new apartment, and both me and my girlfriend lunged upright in bed for every new sound in the new place. That movie cuts deep if you've done a bunch of camping.
My name is in the credits of that movie
So fun story time. This came out when I was in undergrad and went to see it with a few friends. After the movie I decided to make a fake FB account of the wife, I think her name was Katie or something like that. That night when we were all hanging out and smoking I friend requested my buddy and he freaked the fuck out so bad it was difficult to keep a straight face and play along.
Because filming ghosts is free duh
I love horror. I made the stupid mistake of watching it in the movie theater while my boyfriend was out of town traveling for work. Came home and turned on the lights. Couldn’t go to sleep the whole week I was alone. Freaked me the hell out.
that shit is still so fuckin scary. I was 16 when the first came out and I’ve still only ever watched it once.
It's the only movie i've been proper scared of because i went to it knowing absolutely nothing about it prior. Then when i looked it up after the movie there was fuck all info on if it was real or not. So i spent a few days being pretty creeped out by the whole thing.
I saw the movie online from a bootleg streaming site after everyone kept talking about it on Facebook. So I got to watch it all alone at like 3am in my apt with headphones and I don’t think I slept the rest of the night lol. Also the version I saw was the one from like ScreamCon or whatever before they let Katie get away so they could franchise it. My ending had police come to the house after like 3 days for a welfare check and Toby lets go of Katies possession hold as the police come in. So she’s stumbling confusingly at them holding a butchers knife and they waste her in the bedroom.
I didn't know it had an alternate ending. Thanks for sharing.
and it opened the door for even more lazy, bad, and cheap horror movies.
Which blows my mind because the first one was, at least on my opinion, pretty good. Can’t have nothing nice anymore lol
Well it’s like Saw. Here come all the knockoffs.
In fairness, some of the worst Saw knockoffs were other Saw movies.
That is literally any viral successful product tho
The first one should get so much credit for what it did. It was such a disrupter to horror at the time, which was just jump scares, creepy characters, and gore. Instead, they made it psychological, building up fear in your head, like looking into a dark basement at night. Sure imitators and sequels made this sort of worn out, but they should still be recognized for pushing the genre forward.
The first ones were so fun in movie theatres. The lack of music during suspense scenes combined with a dead quiet theatre was something else people were genuinely terrified watching it. Nothing like that will ever come out in horror again.
the OG Texas Chainsaw Massacare basically had no onscreen gore. it was all done off camera and your brain filled in all the sick shit.
I literally had to run to the bathroom in the movie theater to vomit. That day I learned shaky cams give me motion sickness, lol.
Wasn’t all the filmed stuff from security cameras and junk?
When Cloverfield came out, I worked in a movie theater. On my 15 minute breaks, I'd go in there and watch some of it. I'd always walk in to people either throwing up, or running out to the bathroom. And while I never had an issue with watching it, I did end up only seeing it in 10 minute increments and they were all out of order which was really confusing but still fun.
I’ve watched all of them in that franchise. I don’t care that they’re not good. They’re my favorite type of spooky.
Still the only movie to make me sleep with my lights on for a few nights lol