Paranormal Activity: Things Go Bump in the Night. No, Really, They Do

I distinctly remember when Paranormal Activity came to theaters the fall of my freshman year of college. I went with some friends to one of the late-night showings not really sure what to expect. I’ve never found scary movies particularly scary despite having an overactive imagination. Usually, my imagination shuts down and rationalization takes over. This didn’t happen the first time I watched Paranormal Activity. Because so much isn’t seen—rather it’s heard or implied—my mind raced to fill the gaps with reckless abandon. By the end of the film, I had gotten myself so worked up over the demon following Katie (one half of the movie’s main couple) that I only heard rather than saw the final scene. Afterwards, I asked my roommate what I had missed. She told me I hadn’t seen Katie’s face turn into the demon’s.

It's no secret I have a fear of demons and possession that dates back to childhood. Something about an evil, non-human entity following you around just to make your life miserable, or worse, take over your body and strip you of control, fills me with dread. But I always felt like a wimp for not having the courage to keep my eyes open for the final scene. When Paranormal Activity popped up on the list of required reading/viewing materials for Hauntings, I realized this was my opportunity to redeem myself.

So I watched the movie in broad daylight nice and safe under an electric blanket with a hot cup of coffee and my cat. Because I’m cool like that.

This time, all the gaps had been filled from years of distance and knowing what would happen. First thing I did was face the unwatched final scene. My imagination had done one hell of a job creating something far worse than what actually happened. Demon face? Not so much. Creepy snarl with a side order of unresolved ending? Absolutely. My version of the DVD had the alternate ending, so I went ahead and watched that one, too. It was far less spectacular than the demon face theatrical ending, yet it resolved the story. Then, with the two endings in mind, I started from the beginning.

What this movie does spectacularly well is leave so much up to the viewer’s imagination. The demon is never shown—only clues to its appearance are left, which forces viewers to create the demon in their minds. The atmosphere of the movie is literally dark, and many of the scenes are shot in night vision. The lack of light also forces the viewers to imagine what’s in the shadows. But there is enough information so that viewers don’t get too frustrated by the loud noises and implications. This movie didn’t have a script, rather it had an outline for the actors to follow. Through the adlibbed dialogue, the demon’s backstory is revealed, and it doesn’t feel forced or like an info dump. Viewers learn about the monster along with the characters.

The downside to the movie is once you’ve seen it once, there’s no real reason to watch it again. So much of the tension relies on darkness, unexpected noises, and the building anticipation of the viewers. Watching it again after the initial tension of the first viewing has been released makes it lackluster, almost dull, because nothing is unexpected.  

What I found to be the most interesting watching it again was comparing the different endings. Most DVDs have two endings: the theatrical and the alternate. Yet there is a third ending, the original ending, floating around on the Internet. Each ending changes the tone of the movie. The theatrical ending is the most dramatic: Katie is possessed by the demon who has haunted her for most of her life and makes her kill her boyfriend, Micah. Micah’s body is thrown at the camera, possessed Katie crawls over it, grins at the camera demonically, then the scene fades out. It’s followed by an epilogue stating that the police found Micah’s body several days later, but Katie has never been found. This ending leaves much up in the air, which best fits the tone of the movie. The demon finally wholly possesses Katie, which was its MO all along, yet it’s still out in the world to attack someone else or to live on earth in Katie's body.

The alternate ending has more closure. Again, possessed Katie kills Micah, but viewers only know this from what they hear. Katie walks towards the camera covered in blood and holding a knife. The demon then makes Katie slit her throat, and the scene fades out. This ending stops the demon’s threat by giving it what it wants: Katie. Its reign of terror is over once it ends her life.

The original ending had the least amount of punch for me. As with the other two endings, possessed Katie kills Micah, then sits alone rocking the floor of her bedroom for several days. The police enter her home, she snaps out of the near-catatonic state she’s been in, comes towards the police with the knife she used to kill Micah, and the police shoot her down. What I didn’t like about this ending was that the demon just sort of wanders off screen with no hint as to what it actually wanted or if it achieved what it set out to do. It makes the MO more about killing Micah than anything else. If anyone wants to compare the endings, go here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeRzM0NdshA

While I approached re-watching Paranormal Activity with a hint of dread, I was able to see its strengths more clearly than I was the first time I saw it. Granted, I have no plans to watch it countless times over, but I can appreciate its goal: less can sometimes be more, especially when it comes to scares.

Grave's End: For Really Reals

This week we’re switching gears from a fictitious “true” story to a truly true story. Elaine Mercado’s Grave’s End is a woman’s account of her and her family’s time spent in a haunted house. So, basically, this is what Amityville Horror was supposed to be.

Grave’s End starts as Amityville does with a family purchasing and moving into their dream home. Yet it’s clear from the beginning that Grave’s End is an entirely different beast from Amityville. First, the tone of the book is what worked best for me. Rather than a sterile, journalistic retelling, Mercado’s tone is conversational. Granted, this is not the best written book nor does Mercado have beautiful, lyrical prose. Yet, the conversational tone she uses throughout the entire book gives the story a “real” quality that Amityville lacked. I believe in ghosts—this is no secret. Yet all while reading Amityville, I couldn’t suspend my disbelief, even when keeping in mind it was a novel.

What helped me go with Mercado on her story were hers and her family’s reactions to the paranormal activity. Just because I believe things happen that science will never explain doesn’t mean I expect others to share my beliefs. In fact, I’m more surprised to talk with someone who agrees with me than doesn’t. Mercado and her family tried to logic away all that happened in the house for years. Then, when she finally accepted that logicking away wouldn’t work, looked into selling the house. Something else that’s always bothered me about ghost stories: it seems far too easy to up and leave. Granted, I’ve never owned a home and I’ve moved all of once, so my experience is limited. But from what I do know, it’s not as easy as hopping in the car and yelling, “Peace out!” over your shoulder at the entities who have spent all their limited energy trying to evict you. This issue was addressed in Mercado’s book, which added the “reality.” She was forced to stay in a house she feared because selling wasn't a financially sound option.

I was curious to see what came up when I Googled Mercado’s case, just to double check that this wasn’t another Amityville “true story” without the truth. I found nothing of that nature. In fact, the several articles I found quoted Mercado as saying it was all right if no one believed her. Perhaps this is a reaction to last week’s reading, but a part of me is impressed that she said that in the articles. She even prefaces and ends her book with the same thought. Maybe it was a brilliant marketing strategy, but the disclaimer fit beautifully with the tone of the book: this is what happened, believe me or not, but here’s my story.

I think I now understand why Amityville was so successful when it was first published. Because Grave’s End is a true story, I began wondering what it would be like if I ever lived in a haunted house—if I’d ever be able to gracefully handle paranormal activity in my home. The lens of “true story” completely alters the reading experience by adding a layer of reality. I read to escape into a different world, so escaping into another facet of the real one turns the process on its head. Especially when the possibility of the supernatural is peppered in.

The Amityville Horror, In Which I Mention Fifty Shades

I wasn’t sure what to think when I saw Jay Anson’s The Amityville Horror on this term’s reading list. I saw the movie a couple years ago for the first time, and my reaction to it was strong:

This is stupid.

At first I assumed I was far enough removed from the time it was originally released that I couldn’t find it as enthralling as its first viewers did. But just before reading the book, I did some research. Despite being marketed as a true story, The Amityville Horror never happened. The truest part about the entire story was that the DeFeo family who owned the house before the Lutzes were victims of mass murder, and the murders took place inside the house. However, rather than tell the DeFeos’ story or explore the murder case, allegedly Anson worked with the Lutzes to create the paranormal story.

All right, so I was about to read a piece of fiction. That’s nothing new, although a part of me was annoyed that rather than explore the mass murders—the true horror of Amityville—I was about to read another ghost story. My slight annoyance grew into near loathing.

This is one of the most poorly written books I’ve read, and I’m including a certain Fifty Shades of Terrible.

Everything I’ve been taught not to do in my writing happens in this book. The writing itself is juvenile, with either choppy sentences or long, awkward ones. The author kept such a distance from the story that there was no way for the reader to grow too attached to it. I understand that Anson tried to structure the book as a true account of the paranormal, but it didn’t work. Because he didn’t approach the writing like it was a novel, the whole thing is a giant summary. There is barely any dialogue to move the action of the story forward, most of the story itself is told rather than shown. There’s no character development, and the characters themselves are so poorly fleshed out, that it's difficult to care for any of them. My last issue is a pet peeve, but I can’t stand excessive exclamation points. Thirteen of the twenty-five chapters end in exclamation points.

The paranormal references Anson uses are cliché. Cold spots, auditory hallucinations, things moving on their own, emotional possession. I understand that every genre has its tropes, but I found myself rolling my eyes whenever there was a cold spot. Granted, I haven’t read another ghost story where there were swarms of flies in the dead of winter, but I’m not a wide reader of horror.

What I wondered is that despite all my issues with the book (and hopefully, I’m not the only one who had these issues) is why was it so popular when it was first published in 1977? All I can think is that when it was published, no one knew it was a fake. The murders were true, and the new owners of the murder house claimed all this happened. Who’s to say it couldn’t be true? I think the bad writing was more easily forgiven because readers were enthralled by the possibility of “what if?” It reminds me of the Fifty Shades phenomenon. The writing is atrocious, not to mention the story itself, but the readers who love it are those who wonder “what if?”

I wanted to like The Amityville Horror. I wanted it to be better than the movie, but it wasn’t. There are far better—and just as fictitious—ghost stories worth reading.