Perhaps it is our fallible sense of curiosity, or even our penchant for surprises, but for some reason, Secret Screenings always seem to be the center of attention at any Film Festival.  It’s like the one Christmas present that you get to open the night before.  You try your best to choose wisely, all the while knowing that many times, the game is rigged against you, and instead of opening that new Playstation 3, more times than not, you will accidentally choose the box containing a few new pairs of socks.

Now I had tried to get into the first Secret Screening earlier in the festival, but a faulty queue system mixed with high demand, made that venture near impossible.  So initially when I found out that I had once again missed the bus and would not be able to make it to the 2nd Secret Screening, I had taken it pretty hard.  I remember walking past the Screening queue shooting glares to all those lucky bastards that all got to go to this seemingly awesome party, that I had not been invited to.  I felt as if I was missing truly great, a once in a lifetime film that all my friends would chide me for missing!

As I walked passed the front end of the line, I noticed a curious scene taking place.  Apparently, whichever studio had “allowed” this screening to take place, was extremely wary about leaks, and so they immediately set about instituting a strict electronics ban.  This meant, no phones, no laptops, no Kindles… nothing!  In order to enforce this ridiculous ban, they posted a few sharp dressed guys in suits, who methodically patted down the audience before sending them straight on through a metal detector.  All these guys were missing were little earpieces and limo tint on their vehicles.

So what was all this fuss about anyway and do you really want to know?  There were rumors that perhaps this was going to be a preview of Tin Tin, or the remake of The Thing, but it was nothing quite so glorious.  It appears that Paramount Pictures had gone through all this trouble, so that people wouldn’t dare leak any footage from their next Hollywood blockbuster… Paranormal Activity 3!!

REALLY!?  This is the big surprise you had in store for people? The Secret Screening is supposed to be a film for the ages!  One that puts the Fantastic in Fantastic Fest, not some slapped together home-movie looking drivel.  This is not to take anything away from the Directors of PA3, as no doubt they have already scared legions of fans, but come on!  This is hardly the type of film that should be helping to close out the festivities.  I couldn’t even sit through the PA series at home for free, and yet they were forcing some people to wait over 3 hours for such nonsense.  Thankfully, I chose to spend my night across the way at another movie called Urban Explorer.

If you do so happen to be a fan of the Paranormal Activity series, I won’t leave ya hanging!  It may not be the thing for me but what kind of guy would that make me if I tried to institute a coverage embargo on it?  I’ve already heard from people in attendance that although the new PA movie doesn’t necessarily progress the mythology of the last two films as much, it is supposedly far superior, and far scarier than the previous two!  It is also apparently.. a prequel!  So if you happened to like the first two… it appears that you may be in luck!  The films two Directors Henry Joost, Ariel Schulman, and star Katie Featherston were all in attendance for the film’s screening as well as Q&A.  Hopefully Paramount will allow release of Q&A footage later today or tomorrow, but if not, it appears you’ll just have to wait until Oct. 21st when the film open to the US market to find out what’s in store!

Thanks to Jack Plunkett for the Photo!

From Left to Right (Director Ariel Shulman, Actress Katie Featherston, Director Henry Joost) doing Q&A after the film's end

Paramount Pictures have released a new trailer and clip for Paranormal Activity 2.

A sequel to the sleeper hit of 2009, Paranormal Activity 2 is directed by Tod Williams from a screenplay by Michael R. Perry, and sees the return of Katie Featherston as Katie.

Up to now – despite having seen a few trailers, and multiple viral clips – we’ve not been given any real clues as to what direction the sequel is headed.

You’ll be pleased to hear, then, that the new trailer (from Apple) – gives us more of an insight into the film, suggesting it focuses on a mum, dad, teenage daughter and baby, Hunter.

Watch the trailer and clip for yourself below, and feel free to speculate until the cows come home:

Paranormal Activity 2 will be released on October 22.

Thanks to Empire for the clip.

Empire have posted an exclusive new poster for Paranormal Activity 2.

Albeit a rather mediocre poster – one that shows us nothing we haven’t already seen – the poster does hint at the surprises that may be in store once this is finally released.

Directed by Tod Williams, the film appears to focus on Katie (Katie Featherston), after the events of the first installment, as she enters another household, complete with angry dogs and babies with no reflection.

Check out the poster below:

Paranormal Activity 2 will be released nationwide on October 22.

There has been loads of buzz regarding Paranormal Activity these past few weeks.  After a massive campaign to get the movie a wide release, the movie went national this past weekend.  I have been following this for quite a while hoping and praying that my town would be one of the lucky ones to get it.  Thankfully, it did. 

Growing up, I have been exposed to my fair share of horror films.  I’m always on the lookout for that ONE movie.  The one that is going to scare me senseless and make me sleep with the lights on.  After I saw the previews and read the feedback that was being posted on Twitter, I thought this might be the one to do just that.

Paranormal Activity follows Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat as they document strange disturbances that are going on in their house.  After Katie starts to experience a presence in the house, her boyfriend Micah, buys a video camera to record 24 hours a day.  Things go downhill from there.  Needless to say, there is something definitely not right going on in that house.

I’m going to stop there because I don’t want to spoil it for anyone.  Paranormal Activity is being compared to The Blair Witch Project, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  The movie is filmed in the same way, using the hand held camera aspect.  If you had a problem watching Blair Witch or Cloverfield for that matter, you may have trouble with this one as well.  A good portion of the film is a scary version of late night drunk cam.  The rest of the film, the camera is either positioned on a tri-pod or it’s just sitting on a counter. 

The film also begins by making it seem as if it’s based on actual events.  The marketing campaign isn’t quite what was rolled out for Blair Witch, but for someone who doesn’t have any knowledge of this film they may possibly think it is indeed a true story.  The way it was filmed adds to that aspect as well as the fear that you see and feel from the actors.

Shooting on a shoestring budget in his own home, Oren Peli does a great job of bringing the scare.  He understands that what you can’t see is scarier than what you can see.  The anticipation and suspense are tangible and even the smallest things, like someone just standing still, is enough to make you squirm.

I also have to give props to Featherston and Sloat.  If you didn’t know any better you would think they were an actual couple and were really going through this horrible ordeal.  The fear, panic, anger and frustration are all conveyed with realism and their performances are authentic.  I simultaneously felt awful for what Katie was going through, while also wanting to give Micah a good ole fashioned beat down.

Like Blair Witch, Paranormal Activity may not get to you in the theater, but it will creep up on you later.  As you’re laying in bed your mind inevitably wanders to a scene in the film that sends you to the edge of panic while you try your hardest to think of good things like cupcakes and puppies and rainbows.  Then you think you hear something or feel something brush by you and you’re in the throes of panic again.  One of my friends that I saw this movie with slept with all the lights on that night…..and we went to the an early afternoon showing.

Surprisingly this film has been around for a couple of years, but is just now finding it’s glory.  Total Film did a great feature on the story behind the movie and how it came to be.  The final page of the article talks about the ending so consider yourself warned if you haven’t seen it yet.  If you’re interested in checking out feedback from other movie goers, check out the Twitter feed that has been running almost non-stop.  You are encouraged to tweet your reaction to the film to @TweetYourScream.  Reading the different responses has been interesting and has helped build buzz so be sure to check it out.

To wrap it up, I really enjoyed Paranormal Activity.  I was able to sleep but it took effort to get it out of my head before I crawled into my bed for the night.  Like I said at the beginning of this post, I have been longing for a film to scare me, and while it didn’t scare me senseless, it definitely delivered.  The feedback I’ve read is that the best environment to experience this film is in a full theater.  Unfortunately when I saw it, the theater was somewhat empty.  The gasps we heard were mostly coming from me….I’ll admit it. 

If you like a good horror movie…especially at this time of year, then I would highly recommend Paranormal Activity.  Hopefully you’ll get the scare you’re after and you may also just walk out with a new found respect for ouija boards and things that go bump in the night.