I have to say, Paranormal Activity blows its metaphorical load in the trailer. If you've seen that, you've seen most of the scares the movie has in store, and you can pretty much guess how it ends. After all Peli's struggle to get his film noticed, it's ironic that it was pretty much spoiled - in the sense that the trailer gives away the ending - by the very thing Hollywood was supposed to bring to the party: marketing.
I kinda like it; it's stayed with me, that's for sure. It wasn't flat-out scary, but that might have had more to do with the group of rioting tweenies. Not exactly conducive to the escalating sense of terror that the movie skillfully builds.
But oh, that ending.
I have issues here. Having spent 85 and something minutes building the fear with gradually ratcheted phenomena, the last two seconds are a cop-out, pandering to Hollywood sensibility and more-is-more excess. There's just no need for the demon-face. Oren Peli spends the entire film metaphorically sketching a skeletal, creepy picture with charcoal and paper, using the limited tools at his disposal with a good degree of skill and pluck, only to start slapping on the oil paints as they're handed to him at the last. Not only does it look garish, it obscures some of the artistry in what went before.
Just as important as the first ten pages of a screenplay are, the final frames of a film stay with you; they're what you take out into the night, and that ending has stayed with me, simultaneously creeping and annoying.
In short, the ending would have resonated without demon-face.
The original and alternate endings weren't to Paramount's liking. That doesn't make them right. The new ending was suggested by Steven Spielberg.
Let that sink in for a second.
That's the man who, because it looked like shit and didn't work properly, accidentally discovered that seeing less of the shark in Jaws meant it was a darn sight scarier.
As described, the two alternate endings offer marked tonal shifts. The "Katie Myers" ending is, as some have noted, a bit slasher. A bloodbath would have jarred with the rest of the film's quiet escalation just as badly as demon-face.
I like the idea of the throat slit ending, especially if it happens right in front of the camera but above the line of sight. Yes it's bloody, but it isn't graphic. We see, but we don't see, and it maintains the spirit of the movie, because for 85 minutes, what have we actually seen? Effect without cause.
But even with the theatrical cut ending, which is undoubtedly effective, I think there are subtler ways to do things than unleashing the CGI paintbox.
Alternative one: Micah has been flung at the camera. Damaged, it cuts to static with Katie lurking ominously in the doorway, covered in blood, maybe beginning to look a little more like the possessed girl in the internet footage. You never know see what happens next, but the coda plays out as before; Micah found dead, Katie never seen again. The mind does the work for you.
Alternative two: Cut to static right after Katie looks into the camera and begins to approach it, almost as if this demonic force is affecting the technology. Again, the coda works just as well. Our minds fill in the blanks and the terror is as much from within as without.
Would either of these cuts have worked? Maybe, maybe not. You'd be hard-pushed to argue the current ending - and I mean the final two seconds - doesn't, having scared up in excess of $100 million dollars in the US alone. But it feels out of place, a glinting Hollywood diamond peaking out of the rough.
It's reminiscent of that classic email in which you're invited to scour a picture or web page for evidence of a "ghost".
You can't see shit. So you get closer.
Still nothing. Closer.
You start to hold your breath, suspecting something's not quite right here.
But you can't see a damn thing, so you lean in closer. You're almost kissing the screen now when...
You knew it was coming. You just didn't know what it was or quite where it was coming from. You jump, feel like a fool. It works. It's effective because the tension builds slowly, almost unbearably so that by the time that axe falls you're on tenterhooks.
In that sense, Paranormal Activity works wonderfully. But the bang is in Micah flying at the camera, not demon-face, and Paramount effectively shot itself in the foot by not only using it's big reveal shot in the trailer but slapping on two seconds of silicon-processed makeover after the fact.
