Paranormal Activity is a 2007 American supernatural horror film produced, written, directed, photographed, and edited by Oren Peli. It centers on a young couple (Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat) who are haunted by a supernatural presence inside their home. They then set up a camera to document what is haunting them. The film uses found-footage conventions that were mirrored in the later films of the series.
Originally developed by Peli as an independent feature and given film festival screenings in 2007, the film was shot for $15,000. It was then acquired by DreamWorks Pictures, then a Paramount Pictures subsidiary, who modified the film, particularly with a new ending that cost an additional $200,000. It was given a limited U.S. release on September 25, 2009, and then a nationwide release on October 16, 2009. The film earned nearly $108 million at the U.S. box office and a further $85 million internationally for a worldwide total of $194 million. Paramount would then solely acquire the U.S. rights for $350,000. It is often cited as the most profitable film ever made, based on proportionate return on investment, although such figures are difficult to verify independently as this is likely to exclude marketing costs.
The film is the first installment in the Paranormal Activity film series. A prequel, Paranormal Activity 2, was released in 2010.
Plot
Katie drives up to a house in San Diego as her boyfriend and housemate Micah records her from the driveway using his new video camera. Katie claims that an evil presence has been haunting her since she was a child and suspects it may be responsible for strange happenings in their home, so Micah sets up the camera in their bedroom to record any paranormal activity that occurs while they sleep. Psychic Dr. Fredrichs visits the couple at Katie's request and after a conversation suggests that she is being haunted by a demon that feeds off of negative energy and is intent on tormenting her. He advises them not to communicate with the demon and recommends they contact a demonologist to handle matters, but Micah is dismissive of this advice and continues to film and provoke the presence over the next few weeks.
The camera captures many strange occurrences at night: minor noises, flickering lights, and door movements, soon escalating into loud thuds, violent door slamming, and demonic grunts and screeches. One night, Katie gets out of bed appearing to be in a trance, stands beside the bed staring at Micah for two hours, and then goes outdoors where Micah later finds her, none of which she recalls the next day.
Katie is increasingly irritated by Micah's flippant and dismissive behavior about the strange activity. Micah brings home a Ouija board against Katie's wishes. When the couple leaves the house for a night out, the camera records the board's planchette moving by itself before the board spontaneously catches fire. Katie pleads with Micah to contact a demonologist but he refuses and continues his efforts to document events. The couple wakes one night to find non-human footsteps on baby powder Micah sprinkled in the hallway; they lead to an open attic hatch. Micah discovers a burnt photograph in the attic which features a young Katie, though the photo was thought to have been destroyed in a house fire over a decade prior. After Katie finally reaches out to the demonologist and learns he is out of the country, psychic Dr. Fredrichs returns but is alarmed by the energy of the home and flees. The next night, Katie is pulled out of bed and tormented by an unseen force. The next morning, Micah photographs a bite mark on Katie's back, motivating him to prepare to get them out of the house, but Katie, now showing signs of a possession, abruptly changes her mind and insists that they stay.
On Night #21, Katie gets out of bed again in a trance and stares at Micah for hours before going downstairs. Shortly thereafter, she screams for Micah, who frantically rushes to help her. Loud thuds are heard downstairs and Micah screams in pain. A few minutes later, Micah's body is hurled at the camera and Katie is revealed standing in the doorway with blood on her shirt. She crawls to Micah's body and sniffs it, then looks up at the camera with a grin, lunging at the camera with a demonic snarl on her face before the scene cuts to black. The epilogue text states that Micah's body was discovered by the police days later, and Katie whereabouts are unknown.
Various endings Once DreamWorks/Paramount acquired the film, the original ending was shown at only one public viewing before being scrapped; two new endings were developed, one theatrically released above and the other available as an alternate ending on home releases.
Original ending 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, a friend of hers leaves a concerned message at 2pm. At 9pm, she visits the house; meanwhile, Katie stops moving. When her friend discovers Micah's body downstairs and runs away in panic, Katie resumes rocking back and forth. Thirty minutes later, two police officers enter the house and reach the bedroom where they find the possessed Katie with the knife. She stands up, returns to her normal state and asks for Micah. After the attic door slams by itself, one of the officers panics and shoots and kills Katie. The camera fades to black as the police officers continue searching for the source of the slamming sound. An epilogue text appears, dedicating the film to the memory of Micah and Katie.
This ending was exclusively shown at the 2007 Screamfest Film Festival and was never released officially by Paramount or Blumhouse in any capacity, save for the documentary Unknown Dimension: The Story of Paranormal Activity (2021) in which a snippet of the ending was presented. Second Sight Films released a special edition Blu-ray of the film for the UK under license from its regional distributor Icon Productions, and included the full original ending as a special feature. The original cut of the film (dubbed the "Festival Cut") would later leak on various forums.
Alternate ending #1 After killing Micah off-screen, Katie comes back upstairs alone holding a knife on her hand. She closes and locks the bedroom door, approaches the camera, and after smiling, she slits her throat before collapsing dead. The scene then fades to black.
Cast
Katie Featherston as a fictionalized version of herself Micah Sloat as a fictionalized version of himself Mark Fredrichs as Dr. Fredrichs Amber Armstrong as Katie's friend
Credits adapted from TV Guide.
Production
Attempting to focus on believability rather than action and gore, Peli chose to shoot the picture with a home video camera. In deciding on a more raw and stationary format (the camera was almost always sitting on a tripod or something else) and eliminating the need for a camera crew, a "higher degree of plausibility" was created for the audience as they were "more invested in the story and the characters". Peli says that the dialogue was "natural" because there was no real script. Instead, the actors were given outlines of the story and situations to improvise, a technique known as "retroscripting" also used in the making of The Blair Witch Project. In casting the movie, Peli auditioned "a few hundred people" before finally meeting Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat. He originally auditioned them individually and later called them back to audition together. Peli was impressed with the chemistry between the actors, saying, "If you saw the [audition] footage, you would've thought they had known each other for years." During a guest appearance on The Jay Leno Show on November 3, 2009, Sloat and Featherston explained they each saw the casting call on LACasting. Featherston noted they were originally paid $500 for their work.
Principal photography took place at a private residence in Rancho Peñasquitos, San Diego. The film was shot out of sequence due to Peli's self-imposed seven-day shooting schedule. Sloat, who controlled the camera for a good deal of the film, was a former cameraman at his university's TV station. "It was a very intense week," Peli said, stating that the film was shot day and night, edited at the same time, and had visual effects applied as the acting footage was being finalized. Multiple endings were conceived, but not all of them were shot, and the final publicly released ending added by the studio after rights to the film were obtained.
The film was screened at 2007's Screamfest Horror Film Festival, where it impressed Kirill Baru, an assistant at the Creative Artists Agency, to the extent that CAA soon signed on to represent Peli. Attempting to find a distributor for the film and/or directing work for Peli, the agency sent DVDs of the movie to as many people in the industry as they could, and it was eventually seen by Miramax Films Senior Executive Jason Blum, who thought it had potential. He worked with Peli to re-edit the film and submitted it to the Sundance Film Festival, but it was rejected. The DVD also impressed DreamWorks executives Adam Goodman, Stacey Snider, and finally Steven Spielberg, who cut a deal with Blum and Peli.
DreamWorks' plan was to remake the film with a bigger budget and with Peli directing, and only to include the original version as an extra when the DVD was eventually released. "They didn't know what to do with [the original]", said Blum; they just wanted to be "in business" with Peli. Blum and Peli agreed, but stipulated a test screening of the original film before going ahead with the remake, believing it would be well received by a theatrical audience.
During the screening, people began walking out and Goodman thought the film was bombing, until he learned that the viewers were actually leaving because they were so frightened. He then realized a remake would be unwise and unnecessary. Paramount Pictures, which acquired DreamWorks in 2005, bought the domestic rights to the film, and worldwide rights to any sequels, for . When the film was taken in by Paramount, several changes were made. Some scenes were cut, others added, and the original ending was scrapped, with two new endings being shot. The ending shown in theaters during the film's worldwide release is the only one of the three to feature visual effects, and it differs from the endings previously seen at the Screamfest and Burbank screenings. The theatrical release was delayed while Paramount initially put all DreamWorks productions on hold; however, a screening for international buyers resulted in the sale of international rights in 52 countries. Only after Goodman became production chief at Paramount in June 2009 did the film finally get slated for a Fall release.
Release
Paranormal Activity premiered at Screamfest Horror Film Festival in North America on October 14, 2007, was shown at the Slamdance Film Festival on January 18, 2008, and screened at the 36th Annual Telluride Film Festival on September 6, 2009.
The version with the new ending made after Paramount acquired the film was screened on September 25, 2009, in twelve college towns across the United States; the venues included Boulder, Colorado; Columbus, Ohio; Madison, Wisconsin; and Seattle, Washington. Eleven of the twelve venues sold out with State College, Pennsylvania being the only exception due to a Penn State football game that was held the same night. On September 28, Paramount issued a press release on Peli's website, announcing openings in 20 other markets on October 2, including larger market cities such as New York and Chicago.