Oren Peli tells us why Paranormal Activity is ending

Can you believe that it was all the way back in 2009 that we were introduced to Paranormal Activity? The film followed young couple Katie and Micah as they moved into their first home only to find that there was something sinister awaiting their arrival. The film took a phenomenal amount of money, around the $193 million mark which wasn’t bad considering it was made for only $15,000. Given the ridiculously large profits, the film of course spawned a sequel and over the years has morphed into an entire franchise.

All good things must come to an end though and this week marks the end of the Paranormal Activity series as Paranormal Activity: Ghost Dimension arrives in cinemas. This, the sixth film, brings the addition of 3D and the promise that this time we will see the ‘activity’ so we finally get to see what ‘Toby’ looks like.

To commemorate the end of the found footage franchise we got the man who started it all, Oren Peli on the phone to find out why now was the right time to end it all. Peli wrote, produced and directed the first film and although he stepped away from the director’s chair for the films that have followed, he has continued to be heavily involved.

For those not caught up/a little lost, where are we within the Paranormal Activity narrative?

In the latest film Paranormal Activity: Ghost Dimension we start like we usually do. A new family that finds out that they’ve got a problem, that some kind of entity is in their house bothering them, and of course it will escalate during the movie. They will also find out, as will the audience, that whatever is going on with them is connected to the other events that happened to other families, to Katie and Kristi in previous chapters. Also for the first time we’re going to see what the activity, what the demon, actually looks like.

This is the first one in the series to be in 3D, what made the team decide to venture into this technology?

The idea was that we wanted to make sure that we had something new to present to the audience. That while we stay true to the original formula of making everything feel authentic and realistic so you can believe this is something that is really happening to a family, but we wanted to have something new to present so we can tell people that yes it’s going to be another scary movie. All the things that hopefully you’ve enjoyed in the previous movies are still going to be here, but you have this new reason to come to the theatre, and that’s the video element. Up until now what you’ve mostly relied on is on the tension of the hearing things and feeling that something is happening in the house regardless of seeing it. We still have a lot of those moments where you don’t see what’s going on but also for the first time the fact that we are showing what’s going on we felt could be a cool way for our fans to come and watch this movie again.

This is being advertised as the last one, what made you decide that this was the last?

We feel like we had a really good run. We definitely went farther than anyone else anticipated, especially me. I never thought we would have any sequels. We’re feeling very lucky and thankful for the fans that have stuck with us this long, but it does feel like we’ve expanded the mythology quite a bit. We’ve killed a lot of questions throughout the series and now maybe it’s time to put closure to everything and wrap everything up, and explain a lot of what have been going on and questions that have been raised along the way. It just makes sense to wrap it up, we’ve had a good run and make sure our fans are still satisfied with it.

The first Paranormal Activity kind of usurped the Saw franchise from the top Halloween spot, there doesn’t seem to be anything ready to replace Paranormal Activity – what are people going to do next year?

I don’t know. I’m sure there’s going to be a lot of other horror movies coming out, I’m personally curious to see what people come up with. Is there going to be a new style movie? Are we going to go back to something retro? I really have no idea. People will adapt and find something cool and scary to watch.

A lot of your work falls within the supernatural sphere, have you had any strange experiences yourself?

It would be great marketing if to say that I did, it would be a great story, but I can’t make something up so the boring answer is no I haven’t experienced anything that I would say is supernatural.

You’re a writer, director, and producer if you could only do one for the rest of your career which would you pick?

That’s a very tricky question. I don’t know if I can give you an answer because every aspect has a lot of fun to it, so it really would depend on the project. There are some projects that I’ve been involved in that I was happy to just be a producer, I didn’t want to be director at all, but sometimes I feel that director would be great to be on certain projects so I don’t know. If I had to choose, I would probably say producer because that’s the least amount of work, and if the movie doesn’t work out you – just blame the director (laughs).

Horror films have been starting to have a bit of a resurgence the last few years which ones have caught your eye?

I would say my favourite were The Babadook and It Follows. They were the ones that, they might not have been absolutely flawless, but as far as giving me the very uneasy scary feeling of all the movies I’ve seen over the last few years I would say that those two were the most effective.

What film will you be watching for Halloween?

Well I have a newborn so it’s really hard to plan TV time so we’ll be lucky if we can watch anything. I have a lot of movies on my Netflix queue, a lot of horror movies, I’d probably pick one of them if I had time.

Over the years the Paranormal Activity series has been responsible for a lot of sleepless nights, do you ever feel guilty for doing that to people?

A little bit. When I was a kid, when I was eleven, I watched The Exorcist and that traumatised me, it gave me nightmares and I couldn’t sleep for a couple of weeks. So I felt it’s also my way of having some revenge on the world, this is what that movie did to me so now I’m going to do it to everyone else. When I made Paranormal Activity I had no idea that it was going to have that kind of effect on people. I’m glad that it did because it showed that the movie worked, but it wasn’t my intention from the very beginning.

For those that haven’t already marked it as their Halloween film why should people go to cinemas to see Paranormal Activity: Ghost Dimension?

Well hopefully they’ll be scared, that’s always our goal, to scare people. We think the movie has a lot of effective moments that will do the job. Also for fans of the franchise they’ll see things they’ve never seen before and they’ll get some answers to questions that were raised along the way.

Is this really the end of the Paranormal Activity franchise?

As of right now no one at the studio is talking about making another one. They really are saying ‘this is it, this is the end’. We got more than we wanted out of the franchise and we’re going to put it to rest. If in ten years they want to do a reboot or remake, I mean who knows, anything is possible, but as of right now no one is talking about anything.

Paranormal Activity: Ghost Dimension is in cinemas now.