“In a conversation with Dr. Cole Abaius while he was formulating his thoughts on spoiling and The Fourth Kind, he assessed the effectiveness of the scare tactics within the recent trend of found footage filmmaking in the horror genre. This past September when I reviewed Paranormal Activity at Fantastic Fest, I praised the film for ascribing to the “Hitchcock 101 School of Filmmaking” in that it achieves its frightening effect through revealing as little as possible.

Having recently reassessed Psycho in my “Horror 1960? post and while being surrounded by this continuously popular new brand of horror filmmaking, Cole brought up the idea that found footage horror filmmaking might not actually be employing Hitchcockian suspense at all—or, if it does, it’s a filtered, cheaper, and simpler definition of the term that’s come to be accepted when discussing horror and suspense.”

Read this article from Film School Rejects.

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“It’s October, and that means Halloween. And Halloween means horror films. One of the most innovative and spooky horror movies I’ve seen in a long, long time is indie flick Paranormal Activity. I’m a bit of a connoisseur of horror movies, and I caught the ultra-low budget PA when it was making the film festival rounds last year. I was immediately struck by the movie’s Blair Witch verite style and slow-creep pacing. It tells the story of a young couple’s descent into suburban terror by combining the best of “new,” meta film-making technique with the best of old-school horror craftsmanship. Seriously: Big ups to Paranormal Activity.

What I’m saying is I like this movie a lot. And I think you should see it. I was worried that when Paramount bought the rights to it, the plan was to re-make the movie with a “name” cast, throw in a bunch of CGI and a “Hollywood approved” backstory and release it, while ignoring the source material because it’s too “rough.”  But Paramount has instead decided to put out Paranormal Activity in its original DIY glory, but only if there’s enough demand. That’s where you come in…”

Read this article by G4TV.

The Ten Commandments of Filmmaking
How to Work (and Survive) in the
Film and Television Industry
by Peter D. Marshall