The Little Film that could...

A triumph for indie filmmakers everywhere was reached over the weekend as Paranormal Activity opened at number one ahead of Saw VI. The film played less than half the screens of it's horror counterpart and shocked everyone by beating out the franchise giant and taking in 22 million (compared to Saw VI's 14 million). This brings the total revenue for Paranormal to 66 million.

The fascinating part of this whole story is the film's budget was only $11,000!

We are entering a new day of user controlled content and this is beginning to be true even in Hollywood. With the internet, people can communicate very quickly to make their voices heard. The makers of the film relied on that to get their movie a wide release. They started a month ago (end of September) by releasing Paranormal Activity in 13 cities. Then they created an ingenious trailer featuring a live audience's reactions as they viewed the film. The audience was terrified. After the trailer plays there is a link for you to request the movie in your city. The buzz kept building until the film had a guaranteed audience - people that took the time to say "I want to watch it. Please play Paranormal Activity in my city."

What ends up happening in this situation, is people get to see a good movie. The film is just plain scary. It doesn't rely on special effects or a perfectly orchestrated score, it has one camera and two amazing actors. There is no gore in the film at all, with the filmmakers relying on sounds and "what if" moments to scare you. It is, in a sense, an old school scare. Classic suspense, a sort of Rear Window. A scary movie that relies on good story telling and characters to make you scream. What a rare treat. If the film was bad, it would not have received it's wide release as people would have heard it wasn't good and would not have taken the time to request it.

Smaller filmmakers are finding new ways to tell their story. This summer's District 9 is another good example of a brilliant film with a very low budget. It cost 30 million to make the film about aliens and it was full of special effects - proving you don't need hundreds of millions of dollars to make an alien look real.

The more filmmakers can bypass the studio giants, the more we win. That's when WE get to decide what films are good and worth seeing. And as this weekend proved, a little film that cost $11,000 and generated hype based on internet and word-of-mouth can destroy a box-office giant like Saw. Now if only I could raise ten thousand dollars to make a movie...

WEZ SEZ: Paranormal Activity - Sweet

Paranormal Activity Trailer: