Last night in speaking with a rep from Paramount it sounds like they are going extreme grassroots with the promotion for the upcoming festival favorite Paranormal Activity, a film that was made for a meager $11,000 and is conjuring up comparisons to The Blair Witch Project. However, as I was told last night, the big difference here is that you actually care about the characters in this movie.
Today we have received the poster for the Oren Peli-directed supernatural thriller, which was actually filmed at Peli’s home during a seven-day sprint in 2006 with a crew of three that included co-producers Toni Taylor, Peli’s then-girlfriend, and Amir Zbeda, one of the filmmaker’s best friends.
Paramount picked up the film following an impressive showing at Slamdance and it is now set to be released into limited theaters across the country on September 25.
As a way to get the word out Paramount is relying on online websites as well as a dedicated Twitter page located at TweetYourScream which will be aggregating all responses to the film negative or positive. Along with the soon-to-be-activated official site, audience reactions will be used to help spread the word and spread the film’s release. When The Blair Witch Project was released in July 1999 it started in only 27 theaters only to be seen in 2,297 theaters by September. Will Paranormal Activity enjoy the same success?
There will be advance screenings in Los Angeles (ArcLight Hollywood), New York (Landmark Sunshine Theater), San Francisco (The Castro), Chicago (The Music Box), Boston (The Coolidge), Atlanta (The Plaza) and here in Seattle at the Neptune, which is ironically the same theater I saw Blair Witch in back in ’99.
Following that, on the 25th the following cities will all see the film released at midnight:
- Austin (Alamo Draft House)
- Seattle (Neptune)
- Ann Arbor, Michigan (State)
- Durham, North Carolina (Southpoint 16)
- Baton Rouge, Louisiana (RAVE Mall of Louisiana 15)
- Boulder, Colorado (Cinemark 16)
- Columbus, Ohio (Studio 35)
- Orlando, Florida (AMC Universal Cineplex)
- Madison, Wisconsin (Marcus Eastgate 16)
- Santa Cruz, California (Del Mar 3)
- State College, Pennsylvania (Premiere College 9)
- Tucson, Arizona (El Con)
- Lincoln, Nebraska (Ross Media Center)
The Paramount rep I spoke to last night told me it was the first film he had worked on that had not seen any negative responses and while I’m sure the trend won’t continue, I also have yet to see anyone say something negative about the scares this one offers.
Check out the poster below and click here to watch the just released trailer.
After a young, middle class couple moves into what seems like a typical suburban “starter” tract house, they become increasingly disturbed by a presence that may or may not be somehow demonic but is certainly most active in the middle of the night.
Especially when they sleep. Or try to.
