Last weekend, the supernatural thriller Paranormal Activity earned the distinction of being the year’s most improbable blockbuster when it scored an upset box-office victory over Saw VI, easily besting the latest episode of the venerable “torture porn” franchise with an impressive tally of $22 million. This week, it looks to add more to its phenomenal haul when it expands into over 2,400 theaters nationwide, ready-made for a scare-hungry Halloween crowd. All in all, not a bad run for a film made for an initial outlay of $15,000.
While the bulk of the credit for Paranormal Activity’s astounding success is owed to its enterprising first-time director, Oren Peli, the film’s two lead actors, Micah Sloat and Katie Featherston, deserve major props as well. Were it not for their impeccable chemistry as the film’s demon-besieged couple, Paranormal Activity’s modern haunted-house premise would never have proved so effective.
Earlier this week, we spoke with the erstwhile unknowns to find out what it’s like to experience the Paranormal Activity phenomenon firsthand.
This is the first time you’ve done any serious promotion for this film. Was that part of the marketing strategy? Were the two of you deliberately kept under wraps?
Katie Featherston: Yeah. I think at the beginning, with the nature of the movie and how it’s shot and how it looks so realistic, no one was trying to fool anyone, but I think it would have been a little counterproductive to throw us out there and splash our faces all over the place.
Micah Sloat: Also, the best way to experience the film is to go in knowing as little as possible — and to even think, Could this be real? With the movie having the success it has, it makes sense now that we can get out there and start to promote the movie. But early on in the marketing, we were kept in the dark — and I think for good reason.
There must have been a number of journalists who tried to track you down. After a while, did you just have to shut off your phone?
KF: There were a lot of requests from people who found us on Facebook or our Twitter accounts and whatnot, and I would just pass them along to my manager. I knew that we would just have to wait and bide our time, and that was OK.
MS: But we don’t have to wait anymore! [Laughs] Follow us on Twitter and Facebook. We love all the fans that interact with us.
KF: It’s an awesome way to say hi to everybody.
MS: Just getting to know all of the people who supported us, we really appreciate it.
This was truly an example of “guerrilla” filmmaking. How grueling was your shooting schedule?
KF: It was seven days, around the clock, not only because we had a lot to do in a short amount of time, but because we were all focused and determined to get the best quality and the best product that we could while we were there.
MS: There was a lot of waking up really early to film at dawn. Then we’d have to film all night and during the day. It was odd hours.
Did you ever feel as if you were part of some bizarre sleep-deprivation experiment?
KF: Every single second!
MS: I definitely did. At the end of the shoot, in fact, I was definitely getting a little bit loopy from the lack of the sleep. But it fed into the performances.
How far did Oren go to create an authentically scary atmosphere on the set?
KF: In the beginning, with this being his first film, I think Oren had the impression that he really needed to literally scare us for us to be good in a scene, but very quickly [we] learned to trust each other. The truth is, it wasn’t hard to get into that frightening zone because that’s all there was. There were no outside influences, no trailers to go to, no craft services. There were no crew members or people on the phone, just the the three of us in this house, filming this movie. So the atmosphere and the tension was kept up for the majority of the week, mostly because we were just continually filming.
MS: We just had to shoot; we had to get it all done. I had taken a week off from music school to shoot the film and I had to get back or else I was gonna get expelled. I think Oren’s initial idea was to just have us in the house with the camera rolling — living there — and to scare us and to capture what happened. But we quickly realized that that would just lead to tons of dead time and that even if he did scare us, we might not give him the shot that he needed.
Some of my contemporaries have likened your onscreen relationship to that of Jim and Pam from The Office. Do those comparisons make you cringe?
MS: No, I love The Office.
KF: I’ve actually never heard that. You’re the first guy to bring that up.
MS: That’s cool. Jim and Pam — their relationship really makes that show something special.
Interest in otherworldly phenomena seems to have penetrated the zeitgeist at the moment. What does it feel like to be at the forefront of such a trend?
KF: It’s hard to wrap our heads around it, to tell you the truth. To us, it was this project that we’d loved so much, but [that] we’d filmed a long time ago. And now it’s become this huge thing. But to me it’s still this little movie that we did — just me, Micah and Oren hanging out. It’s sort of surreal how things have transpired.
Congratulations on taking down the Saw franchise, by the way. That’s quite an achievement.
KF: Well, a lot of the thanks will have to go to Oren, because he really created a movie that was not about shock value and blood and gore, but about building a high level of tension and a really slow sense of dread.
Did your experience making this movie affect your views toward spirits and other ethereal phenomena?
MS: I’ve always been fascinated by the occult and the paranormal, by ghosts and demons and UFOs — anything that all the hardcore horror fans are into as well. As far as this movie goes, I think it unconsciously intensified all of my experiences. For example, we were playing around with a Ouija board the other day on a show, and normally, when I did that as a child, it was always fun. But this time it was a little scary. I have to attribute that to the experience of making the movie.
Perhaps it was a demon who didn’t like how the movie characterized his compatriots.
KF: Oh, I hope not. I’m so happy right now, I don’t need a demon to come and ruin it.
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