Paranormal Movie Reflections

So--a religious/faith experiment. I'm about to go to see the movie Paranormal Activity--a near-midnight showing. I've heard from trustworthy sources (read: my sister) that it's quite a frightening film. Its fear, apparently, derives in part from a typical fear of the supernatural (ghosts, demons, etc.).

Now, liberal as I am, I do not disbelieve in such things... How scary might this be?

We shall see. Off we go.

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Back.

It's fascinating to me just what people find frightening about the supernatural. PA, as you may know if you've seen it (spoiler alert if you haven't), turns out to be about not a ghost but a demon, a demon apparently linked to the lead female character, Katie. The film's conceit is that Katie's boyfriend, Micah (pronounced Mee-kah), decides that the best way to deal with the anomalous phenomena connected to Katie (which at first include small things like noises, doors moving, faucets turning on, etc.) is to film everything. Like most "found footage" films (e.g., Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield), PA depends upon at least one character insisting that everything must be caught on camera, which produces the corollary convention of other characters' complaining repeatedly about how the film-making character has to keep that blankety-blank camera rolling all the time.

But the found footage shtick works pretty well here, making PA into a kind of Ghost Hunters with a bite. Micah's desire to exacerbate the situation so as to produce cooler video footage conflicts with Katie's growing desperation to make him stop. The negative energy produced by the couple's fighting, plus the bold (read: foolish) challenges that Micah directs toward the whatever-it-is leads to increasingly bizarre and violent events, ending with... well, you should see it or have your own sister explain it to you in detail.

Two matters caught my attention, aside from the largely effective scare scenes. First, it strikes me that the movie portrays as much the horror of a woman not being listened to by her husband. Again and again Katie begs Micah to stop filming, to stop provoking the entity, to not go down the hall, to not leave her alone, to not mess with Ouija boards--countless pieces of advice that seem (from the point of view of the horror movie's audience) completely sensible. Micah repeatedly deflects, twists, and condescends his way out of her advice, becoming the horror movie version of the husband who won't stop for directions.

As the disturbances get more horrifying and as Katie deteriorates further under the nightly assaults on eight hours of undisturbed sleep, Micah insists that he and he alone can "deal with this," that "no one invades my house," and that he and he alone will protect Katie. He "does research," looking online, reading a few books, and basically confirming that yes, demons sure are awful, pesky things.

Oddly enough, though, these characters have practically no effective tools to address the paranormal. Well, I take that back: one of the first scenes involves the couple's talking to a "doctor" and psychic who deals primarily with ghosts. It's he who informs the couple that they're dealing not with a ghost tied to the house but with a demon tied to Katie herself. He suggests that they contact a colleague of his, a demonologist, as he (being a ghost expert) isn't able to help. Micah refuses to contact the demonologist as a point of pride.

Now, by this point--"you have a demon"--most characters in other movies would revisit some religious beliefs, seeking out a priest, a pastor, a rabbi, what have you. But aside from a brief reference or two (and one prop), the movie presents two characters nearly entirely devoid of a faith tradition to draw on. The "demon research" Micah does, though it features many standard demonic pictures, avoids mention of anything like hell, Satan, God, heaven, or any of the other supernatural cohorts of demons in Christian (or Jewish or any religious) cosmology. Demons are "supernatural beings" that cause harm--that's it. They might as well be invisible aliens.

This oddly secular supernaturalism leaves the characters utterly defenseless against the entity itself. They can attract the entity's attention. The demonologist (it is suggested) can "fix it" in some undefined way. There's some talk of exorcists, though these aren't identified as religious figures but as "experts" like the psychic at the beginning. Micah and Katie never once consider speaking to a religious figure of any sort or that religion itself might have something to offer in terms of trafficking with the supernatural.

I'm sounding, I realize, a lot like my mother, who was always quick to lament when this or that pop culture plot or show failed to mention God or Christianity, such as a Christmas show that featured Santa but didn't refer to Jesus. I don't mean that I think PA should have gone Exorcist, with the holy water and the split-pea soup and all. Rather I'm interested in how the movie stays so faithful to its materialist style (only scientific investigations of the supernatural, please) that once materialism fails for the characters (the doctor-psychic can't help; the demonologist is out of town), they have nothing to fall back on except whimpering and screaming.

I'm curious to hear what more traditional evangelical types think of this movie and about the absence of evangelicals (or of any self-identified people of faith) in the film. Now, maybe the film makers simply wished to keep the film clear of Exorcist-style imagery. Or perhaps Christians made their faith so completely a matter of culture war battles that they have nothing meaningful to contribute to a film about "paranormal activity." Either way, this film doesn't seem likely to attract many conservative evangelical spectators. One family in front of us got up and left in the middle of the film. They had endured several frightening scenes, but once Micah brought out the Ouija board, the father said, "That's it; let's go." And off they went. My impression was that scary scenes were OK, but Ouija boards were just too evil...

More tomorrow,

JF