Poor Ed Wood. The director of such no-budget cult classics as “Glen or Glenda” and the (in)famous “Plan 9 from Outer Space” could only dream of the kind of financial success showered upon “Paranormal Activity,” the supernatural “mockumentary” that cost only $15,000 to make but has since grossed $62 million and counting. Then again, Ed didn’t have the internet or Youtube back in 1959 when “Plan 9″ was released.
“Paranormal Activity” doesn’t have a chiropractor standing in for an expired Bela Lugosi or a Swedish professional wrestler in it, but it certainly shares Wood’s lowball aesthetic, from bad makeup and over-the-top acting (the “previous victim” sequence could’ve come from a Wood production) to ridiculous special effects (the “demon” moving the bedsheets is obviously someone turning an electric fan on and off). Its riff on our narcissistic, “all cameras on me” culture is exploitation filmmaking at its most opportunistic, but shouldn’t a horror movie be, like, scary? My threshold for fear is pretty low (a viewing of 1972’s “The Blob” kept my 9-year old self cowering under the covers every night for a week), but I found my housemates’ “MST3K”-style wisecracking far more memorable than anything in the film.
I realize, of course, that this film is not aimed at me, and it’s not legions of 41-year old men who are driving its success. In fact, my crash pad-dwelling, Ouji board-playing contemporaries and I from 20 years back would probably have found this pretty mind-blowing, but there’s little in it that my present, demonically-atheist self could relate to. It’s probably a bit sad that the real terrors of adult life – loved ones’ medical scares, financial problems, unemployment, etc. – have left me unaffected by things that go bump in the night, but hey, who said getting older was all fun and games?
The film’s lack of polish, however, doesn’t detract from its importance as a pop-culture moment. Much as the bloggers-vs.-Dan Rather dustup of a few years back helped to legitimize a new, decentralized media, the runaway success of ”Paranormal” is ushering in a new era of DIY filmmaking. Who needs big stars and big budgets? The younger generation has grown up in an atmosphere of “reality” TV and homemade internet viral videos, and “Paranormal” is, at its heart, an updating of classic exploitation filmmaking for the technology of a new millenium. So rest easy, Ed. Your legacy is in good hands.