Directed by: Oren Peli
Starring: Katie Featherstone, Mark Fredrichs, Micah Sloat
Rating: R

A scene from Paranormal Activity. (Courtesy photo)

It’s always good when a tiny independent film puts Hollywood in a tangle. The latest out-of-nowhere phenomenon is Paranormal Activity, a creepy little film made for all of $15,000. That’s less than most movie stars make per day, yet this little indie is scaring its way toward becoming the most profitable movie ever made.

First-time director Oren Peli has taken the simplest of concepts—a young couple tries to record the ghostly behavior taking place in their San Diego house—and gradually, teasingly, builds the tension to bursting. It’s a fun little exercise, and a mostly successful scare-fest. However, by being more exercise than story, its effectiveness is capped. Like the team that pulled off the Blair Witch Project 10 years ago, this team of cinematic neophytes may not have made a masterpiece, but they have tapped into a universal source of fear.

The movie opens without music or credits, just a simple note from Paramount Pictures thanking the families of leads Micah Sloat and Katie Featherstone. Nice touch. Then we begin with Sloat revealing to girlfriend Featherstone the new expensive video camera he purchased. We only see the movie through the camera, but gradually learn that these two have been together for three years; he’s a day trader (it was shot in 2006) and she’s an undergraduate student. Over the past few weeks strange noises and minor occurrences have been happening in their house. Much to Sloat’s embarrassment they call in a psychic (Mark Fredrichs). Featherstone reveals that she’s been having such things follow her around since she was eight years old. Now they’re getting worse.

Part of the appeal of Paranormal is knowing as little as possible as the movie begins, so I’ll stop there. Understand: the movie is super low-budget, starring inexperienced film actors. The hoped-for result is a feeling of authenticity, and that kind of happens. Featherstone and Sloat feel like real people; they just aren’t quite up to the acting challenges Peli puts them through. They’re also very easy to forgive, as is the production overall. Peli makes one great and audacious decision: everything you see happens through the view of a stationary camera, meaning every abnormal event is there for us to dissect.

Even if the movie doesn’t get you spooked, you should be able to admire the innovative effects pulled off by Peli and his tiny crew. Also impressive is the discipline shown by Peli in terms of how little he lets us see and how gradually he lets the activity get more paranormal. While a few minor excesses may take some out of the moment, they certainly don’t sink the overall experience.

When Paramount plucked Paranormal off the festival circuit, apparently their first plan was to remake it as a big-budget studio film. But after test screenings kept earning overwhelmingly positive responses, they made a bold choice. The studio embarked on an effective campaign to tease out the release of the movie much in the same way the movie teases us. People were encouraged to go online and demand the movie be shown in their cities. It all worked beautifully, thanks mostly to the fact that the movie delivers the scares.

Undoubtedly there will be many efforts to capitalize on this phenomenon, just as there were after Blair Witch. That may be its lasting impact: not so much as a movie that makes you scared to go to bed at night, but as one that haunts aspiring filmmakers everywhere to come up with their own $100-million concept. Or maybe it’s Paramount that will be haunted by its first truly bad decision: the sequel to Paranormal Activity is already being discussed.

Alex Manugian lives in Sherman Oaks, Calif. He grew up in Groton and has reviewed movies for Harvard readers for many years.