Icon Home Entertainment is pleased to announce the 22nd March DVD and Blu-ray release of the horror phenomenon that is Paranormal Activity. Directed by Oren Peli and having grossed over $100 million dollars in America, it has now exceeded the £10 million mark at the UK Box Office. Hailed by FrighFest’s Alan Jones as “the horror sensation of the moment,” this truly terrifying film is now primed to frighten the hell out of people in the safety of their own homes!
After Micah (Micah Sloat) and Katie (Katie Featherston), a young, middle class couple move into what seems like a typical suburban “starter” 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 are fast asleep.
The presence seems most concerned with Katie, a student who has felt “haunted” her whole life. Her boyfriend, Micah, a day-trader, becomes fixated on learning as much as he can about the phenomenon. Technologically savvy and a lover of toys, Micah spends a few thousand dollars on a high-definition video camera and sets it up at the foot of their bed, creating at once the most intimate of tableaux and an evidentiary medium.
The arrival of Micah’s new toy seems to trigger an escalation of paranormal activity, causing Katie to observe that the presence “doesn’t like it.” As the video tape rolls, Katie becomes increasingly distant while Micah’s fascination grows into obsession.
Paranormal Activity was originally filmed in director Oren Peli’s suburban San Diego home, during a seven-day sprint in 2006. Peli first got the idea for Paranormal Activity when he first moved from his native Israel to California into his first house. Says Oren, “It was the first time I’d ever lived in a house: I’d only ever rented small apartments. So especially in quiet suburbia, I quickly learned that you become conscious of every little noise, especially at night. The house, or the ground around it, was settling; things were falling off shelves in the middle of the night. I’m not saying there was a ghost or anything, because the incidents, or whatever you would call them, were happening months apart.”
Separately, Oren’s previous girlfriend, Toni Taylor recalls that, like Katie in the film, she has felt “haunted” off and on for years, long before she met Peli. “I like to think I was some kind of inspiration for the film,” she says. Taylor also talks about having wanted to make improvements to the new home right after they moved in, while Peli wanted to wait. And wait they did. And for the next couple of years those night time noises – however intermittent – persisted.
“They got the techno-geek side of me thinking, ‘OK, it would be cool to set up video cameras as a way to figure out what was going on’,” says Peli, “If those cameras caught something good, I thought that could make a pretty interesting movie. The Blair Witch Project proved that if a movie that purports to be found footage is done well, it can be very popular.”
Special features on the DVD and Blu-ray release include an alternate ending, plus the winner of Icon’s “Film Your Own Paranormal Activity” short film competition which enabled horror fans to shoot and submit their own paranormal short film for inclusion on the release.
During the cinema release, fans were challenged to shoot their own paranormal footage using the same home-made techniques as the film and then submit their film to the Prepare to Be Scared YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/preparetobescared).
The entries will be judged by Paranormal Activity director, Oren Peli and the best of them will be included on the DVD and Blu-ray!
Icon Home Entertainment will be releasing Paranormal Activity on DVD and Blu-ray on 22nd March and Chris and Phil will be reviewing the DVD in a future podcast.
You can listen to Puppy’s review of the film in Podcast #23 here.
