Paranormal Activity Analysis

The reason why Paranormal Activity is considered so scary, is because it used the same device as The Blair Witch Project. The production company provided a false story behind the film which made the audience believe that what they were watching is real footage. The style of the trailer is 'mock-umentary' and you can tell it has a very low budget. The opening of the trailer shows people queuing up to watch the film, to show the footage is not part of the film, the camera is hand-held.
The trailer doesn't show many frames of the film, instead the trailer focuses on night-vision documentary footage of reactions from a preview audience watching it in the cinema. This makes the viewers of the trailer feel very uncomfortable, as it has broken the expected conventions as you are watching the audience watch the film. The actual film footage is also using home video footage, you can tell this as the shot has the time and date on the bottom of the screen, this is a convention of a home video. This makes the film appear even more scary as it enables a possibility of it being real and the audience can believe it could happen to them.
Throughout the trailer, there is diegetic sound from the audience. The screams and gasps make the film appear much more terrifying, as the reactions from the preview audience are very dramatic. There is also enhanced diegetic sound like strange noises and the locking of doors, for a dramatic effect. Non-diegetic music is used which helps build the tension, it is also a typical convention for horror movies. The audience associate non-diegetic scary music with the horror genre.
The actors used in Paranormal Activity are a plain and ordinary couple who have no star status. This is done to enhance the realism of the film. The main focus of Paranormal Activity is for the audience to believe that what they are watching is real footage. Having a typical couple, dressed in normal everyday casual clothes, in a regular suburban house achieves this.
The editing of the trailer provides a mixture of fast and slow paced cuts. Some of the shots fade to black, which anticipates what next is going to appear on the screen. The fade up is very slow, which builds tension and makes the audience apprehensive to see what the next shot is. There are lots of shot-reverse-shot techniques used from the audience back to the footage, this is so the people watching the trailer see how the preview audience are reacting. There is then a fast editing sequence and montage, the camera quickly cuts from supernatural events, to the couple and then to the audience. It becomes exciting and implies chaos.

Charlotte Green