15 years ago, this movie took the world by surprise … and scared everyone who saw it

This massively successful scary movie terrified audiences in 2009 and ushered in a new era of paranormal horror that can still be seen in Hollywood today.

Fifteen years ago, on September 25, 2009, Paranormal Activity was released in theaters and scared the pants out of audiences everywhere. Even before the movie’s premiere, it had already become legendary. Instead of debuting via a massive theatrical release rollout, the micro-budgeted movie was screened in college towns across the country to drum up word of mouth. It worked. Thanks to the (somewhat still new) popularity of Facebook and the prominence of texting on phones, Paranormal Activity didn’t need a marketing campaign. Frightened audiences told everyone they knew about the scary movie they just watched. Soon, the internet was ablaze with word of this new movie that didn’t have stars anyone had heard of before. Filmed in the found-footage style, the movie centers around a young couple, Micah and Katie, who are determined to capture the paranormal activity happening in their house. But it’s not just a ghost that’s haunting them, it’s a demon. Even worse, the more attention they give to it, the stronger and more active it becomes. Paramount realized Paranormal Activity was destined to become a hit and picked it up for wide distribution. When the movie finally premiered in theaters across the country, audiences were terrified. When speaking to Empire, Jordan Peele recounted his experience seeing the movie in theaters. “When the s*** hit the fan, Katie is dragged out of the room screaming. The audience absolutely lost it,” the horror icon said. Since then, Paranormal Activity has received six sequels and has become one of the most prominent examples of found-footage movies ever. It’s also just as scary as it was in 2009, and aside from the dated use of the camcorder, it still looks and feels terrifying. Peele isn’t the only one who was horrified by Paranormal Activity. In 2009 Roger Ebert even gave the movie 3.5 out of 4 stars, saying, “It illustrates one of my favorite points, that silence and waiting can be more entertaining than frantic fast-cutting and berserk f/x.” The movie was so scary that its trailers even used audience footage from its screenings to show how horrified moviegoers were. By the end of its box office run, Paranormal Activity had raked in over $193 million. Similarly to The Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity gets a lot of its horror from what audiences don’t see. Strange sounds and small movements captured by the camera seem trivial, but when the movie’s pacing is flawless, each small instance can feel monumental and the anticipation that builds between them is undeniable. As the movie continues, the stakes get higher and the hauntings more intense. But the film never uses special effects or has some haggard-looking ghost running around. Even its “big moments” are subtle compared to other horror movies. For example, at one point Micah scatters baby powder around the floor to see if something really is walking through their house at night. When he turns the lights on, the prints left behind look like some kind of lizard or bird. Even as someone who doesn’t believe in the paranormal, this movie still gets to me. It utilizes our natural fears, like being in a big, empty, dark house at night — and then hearing a strange sound in the hallway. But the movie definitely requires some patience. If you like being scared by CGI-generated monsters and loud musical cues, then this probably isn’t the movie for you. But if you turn off all the lights in a quiet room late at night and watch Paranormal Activity, you will discover just how horrifying it is. The success of Paranormal Activity was so massive it created a sea change in the horror genre. When the film premiered initially in 2007 and then had its full release in 2009, horror was in its full-blown “torture porn” phase, where filmmakers were doing everything they could to have the goriest and grossest torture movie possible. The Saw franchise, Hostel, and The Hills Have Eyes reboots were proving to be box office hits, and The Human Centipede had just made its debut at FrightFest. But after Paranormal Activity outgrossed all those movies (Saw II for example was the highest-grossing Saw film, making just under $148 million, which was $40 million less than Paranormal Activity), Hollywood realized a new horror trend may have just emerged. The torture porn trend ended almost immediately after Paranormal Activity, and by the following year, the paranormal era was hitting high gear and gore was gone. After Paranormal Activity, more paranormal horror films followed, including numerous Paranormal Activity sequels, as well as Insidious and The Conjuring, both of which would spawn their own massive franchises. There was also a wave of other low-budget found-footage paranormal movies that, while never making a huge splash, became notable hits within the horror community, like Hell House LLC, Grave Encounters, and The Taking of Deborah Logan. Paranormal Activity was made and released during a period of massive change. Social media had just become a widely used tool by society, and smartphones had just started rolling out to the general public. New technology that wasn’t around at the time of its release could be used to make a really fun modern Paranormal Activity sequel or reboot. Between Nest cams, doorbell cameras, smartphones, drones, and even dashcams, there are so many new tools that could be used to reinvent the found-footage genre and add new touches. The streaming era could also be helpful, since studios don’t need to invest as much money into theatrical releases and instead can release low-budget movies on their streaming platforms for much less investment. With how cheap the Paranormal Activity movies are to make, they could be perfect for Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Shudder, or even Tubi. Another reason why now could be the perfect time for a new Paranormal Activity movie is that belief in the paranormal has actually risen in recent years. There’s a lot of really touchy topics that have probably caused this — largely America’s regression into fanaticism and conspiratorial thinking — but modern studies have shown some shocking results. In 2021, it was reported that 57% of Americans believe in ghosts, and in 2023 another study revealed that over half of Americans think they’ve actually been visited by a ghost. These findings might make some of us question our fellow Americans and their belief systems, but for Hollywood and anyone wanting to make a paranormal movie to scare the crap out of people…now seems to be the perfect time. You can watch Paranormal Activity on Max. The crime genre has long been dominated by men doing bad things. Think of the all-time best crime movies — Goodfellas, Pulp Fiction, The French Connection — and you’ll notice how homogenous they are. Although they are not necessarily formulaic, they do follow a pattern, and it’s one where bad men live dangerously, reach enviable highs, and eventually suffer huge downfalls. Sometimes, we root for them to win, as misguided as their actions might be, like in Dog Day Afternoon. Other times, we are fascinated by their journeys without ever empathizing with them, like in The Godfather. Whatever approach we take, a crime movie are often riveting and engaging. The best of them, however, are thought-provoking and intelligent, too, and no crime movie in the past decade has been more so than Lorene Scafaria’s 2019 crime dramedy Hustlers. Based on Jessica Pressler’s 2018 article The Hustlers at Scores, the film centers around a group of New York City strippers who begin drugging their high-profile clients, including CEOs and stock traders, and maxing their credit cards. Starring an ensemble led by Constance Wu and a career-best Jennifer Lopez, Hustlers was a breath of fresh air when it premiered at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival to rave reviews. Commercial success ensued, with the film grossing a whopping $157 million against a production budget of $20 million, making it one of 2019’s biggest non-MCU success stories. At the time, Hustlers was declared one of the best movies of the year and a breakthrough in the careers of Scafaria, Lopez, and Wu. Now, five years later, it’s very easy to see it as not only a towering dramatic achievement, but also the best crime movie of the 2010s that redefined the way we see such stories on the big screen.
Reframing crime Human beings do not do well with change. We resist it and seek distractions wherever we can, especially in moments when we should be looking within rather than out. That has only become a harder habit to kick, too, in the Internet Age. Why take care of our problems or acknowledge our own hang-ups when we can just watch other peoples’ lives pass by in front of our eyes with just a few swipes of our fingers? As Thelma Ritter’s nurse, Stella, puts it in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 masterpiece, Rear Window: “We’ve become a race of peeping toms.” That line may have been written by screenwriter John Michael Hayes 70 years ago, but it’s only become more relevant in the decades since. It’s a comment directed in the film at Stella’s client, L.B. Jeffries (Jimmy Stewart), a thrill-seeking photographer who has been left apartment-bound in a giant, itchy plaster cast after breaking his leg during a job gone wrong. With nothing to do but sit in his wheelchair and look out his apartment window, L.B. has taken to passing the time by spying on his neighbors’ lives through their courtyard windows. Before long, he’s become convinced that one of his fellow tenants, Lars Thorwald (Raymond Burr), has secretly killed his wife. There’s a lot that goes into the making of any good action movie. Fight scenes, car chases, shootouts, and just about every kind of set piece known to man require extensive planning and rehearsal time. A director must also know how to block, shoot, and cut an action sequence together if they want to ensure that each lands with maximum impact. Action movies have, of course, existed longer than talkies, and directors have spent the past 100 years working tirelessly to find new ways to outdo their predecessors and continue to thrill audiences. But, in all of that time, very few action movies have ever ascended to the same level of technical and aesthetic brilliance as Hero. The 2004 film, which hit theaters in the U.S. 20 years ago this week, is one of the most astonishing exercises in cinematic style that any filmmaker has ever attempted. Directed by Zhang Yimou, Hero is essentially a collection of vibrant, monochromatic martial arts sequences that are all executed at the highest possible level. Featuring a cast of some of China’s most talented and beloved movie stars, it is a symphony of movement and editorial cuts that flow seamlessly from one to the other. Like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon before it, Hero invites viewers into a world where warriors who have the power to become literal forces of nature are still governed by the basest of emotions, whether it be rage or grief. The result is a film that is elegant but blunt, musical and yet discordant — a ballet that hits with the force of a thousand closed fists.
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