Switchblade Comb

I was going to leave this alone, but the whole Paranormal Activity phenomenon has just gotten a bit ridiculous. Despite being a sub-par work, it certainly had a fantastic marketing campaign, and now Paramount is letting fans submit their names to be in the DVD credits as a special ‘thank you’ for DEMANDING the film everywhere. I guess this would be a nice gesture except that Paramount used the DEMAND campaign solely as a gimmick and planned to roll-out the film nationwide regardless.

Along with this, it’s now being assumed that Paranormal Activity will cause major studios to focus on tiny-budget horror films to make more profit. Good idea, but total bullshit, because the same thing should’ve happened 10 years ago in the wake of Blair Witch Project. However, the studios back then did nothing of the sort. That film’s effect on the horror genre was instead to have every aspiring filmmaker pick up newly-available digital camcorders and make their own no-budget film in hopes of generating the same success which, unless you consider being dumped on the back page of Netflix Play It Now’s horror section an achievement, never happened.

Paranormal Activity isn’t the beginning of a horror revolution, it’s the first financially positive after-effect from the ‘revolution’ 10 years ago. That’s a long time for a good idea to pay off just once, so studios will continue to play it safe, file this away as a fluke (which it is), make the sequel, and continue on with their lives. I can only hope they take the larger-budget Paranormal Activity 2 on the Devil’s Rejects route and focus on a bad-ass, demon-possessed girl running rampant through the countryside, because that’s something I’d like to see.