Tracking Shots In Films – Part I

Yesterday, director Alfonso Cuaron released a new trailer for his film Gravity. Cuaron is the chap behind films such as Children of Men, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (the one everyone likes), and that God-awful remake of Great Expectations. Critics have been blown away by Gravity – the story of an astronaut (played by Sandra Bullock) who is stranded in space. From first premises, that sounds lame. What will make it sound lamer is that she has to be rescued by George Clooney. All this aside, watch the trailer below and see what you think.

The first thing you will probably notice is that there’s not a lot of cuts, it’s far more streamlined than a traditional scene. In fact, the opening shot of Gravity is reportedly one long take lasting 17 minutes. That’s pretty impressive. It also brings in the subject of today’s post: tracking shots. Basically, a tracking shot is like the one seen in the trailer for Gravity – it’s a long piece of footage with no breaks (‘cuts’). You may be asking, ‘So what? What’s the deal? Why all the fuss?’ but just consider how much work has to go into setting up one of those shots: everything has to be in the right place, everyone has to remember their cues and come in on the right time, everything has to be perfect. This is why some directors tend to shy away from them, but when they do include them in film, it just makes them more impressive. Today and tomorrow, I’ll be looking at some of my favourite tracking shots in film. Enjoy!

1. Children of Men

As I’ve mentioned above, Children of Men is another one of Alfonso Cuaron’s films – if you haven’t seen it then DROP EVERYTHING AND BUY THIS FILM! It’s fantastic. Plus, it has a whole heap of tracking shots in it. Take the opening of the film, for instance:

There are so many potential places for ‘cuts’ in that sequence – it could have made it a lot easier to film, in terms of the explosion – but the fact that it’s one straight piece of footage just makes it that much more visceral. And it makes for a brilliant opening to the film.

Later on in the film there is, arguably, one of the best tracking shots in modern film. It involves cars, fire, motorcycles, ping-pong balls, and Julianne Moore getting shot. Take a look:

Just think how many things had to go right to make that shot: the motorcycles, the blood, the reactions, the camera movements. It’s mind-boggling. They even released a behind-the-scenes video to show just how they managed to achieve this complex shot.

2. Goodfellas

This film is a classic, one of director Martin Scorcese’s greats. Practically everyone has seen (or is about to see, after reading this) this film. There’s a brilliant example of a tracking shot as Henry makes his way into the club. Enjoy.

3. Hugo

This is another of Scorcese’s films – critics have called it ‘an extravagant, elegant fantasy’ and have praised its use of technology and 3D. Now, this next clip isn’t an exceprt from the film, but rather a behind-the-scenes look at how the tracking shot was accomplished. It’s still definitely worth a watch.

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It suddenly occured to me how ‘YouTube’-heavy this post will be, so I’ve decided to split it into two parts. Stick around for Part II tomorrow for more tacking shot goodness!

Tom

The Ultimate Pixar Theory

Maybe they just ran out of footage?

Most people reading this will have seen a Pixar film, unless they’ve been living under a rock for the past few decades. In fact, most people reading this will be aware of the famous ‘Pixar Easter Eggs’ that are present in all of their films –  these are little references to other Pixar works. For example, there’s the same caravan present in both Monsters Inc. and A Bug’s Life – see the image on the right. Now these are seemingly unimportant hidden jokes for the fans to spot. However, one man Jon Negroni has looked at all these little Easter Eggs hidden in Pixar films and theorised that they form a larger story: one that involves all Pixar films to date. He has published his thesis in which he talks about ‘The Pixar Theory’.

Put simply, The Pixar Theory states that all Pixar films are set in the same universe – just at different points in time. Whilst each film tells its own separate story, they all form part of a larger and more complex tale. At first, this sounds ridiculous – but once you start reading Mr Negroni’s theory and the evidence he uses to support it, it does start to make sense. At least up until a point.

The entire thesis is available here, and I absolutely encourage you to read it (it does have pictures) as it is fascinating just how much research Mr Negroni has done into the subject. But what I’m going to do in this post is summarise his theory and maybe offer a critique or two.

So, where does this ‘Pixar universe’ begin? It starts with Brave. Without spoiling it, Brave tells the story of a young princess who discovers magic in the world. This magic comes from a strange old witch, who can make animals and inanimate objects move and act like humans.

Then, fast-forward a few centuries and (supposedly) these ‘magic’ animals start inter-breeding and have now formed a decent size population of these ‘clever’ animals. Remember Ratatouille? The tale of the clever rat that learnt to cook better than a human? This is the start of the ‘animal revolution’. Now this ‘revolution’ can be seen through two Pixar films: there’s the animosity between humans and sea-life in Finding Nemo and, there’s the implied animosity in Up (between Charles Muntz’s experiments and the human population).

Now, let’s move onto machines. In true Terminator style, machines rise up and overthrow humans. Take The Incredibles : there you have the A.I. controlled ‘Omnidroid’ that starts attacking the city – as if it has an in-built hatred of humans. In Up there’s the evil corporation who are threatening to tear down Carl’s house; in the Toy Story series we see the gradual dissatisfaction on the part of the toys – the rise against Sid, Jesse resent her owner for leaving her, Lotso’s hatred of humans.

The ‘Skynet’ of the Pixar universe.

All this is leading up to one big ‘Skynet’ moment in which a corporation takes over completely. And that corporation is Buy-N-Large (or BNL). They were the ones wanting to tear down Carl’s house in Up, they were the ones who ‘took over’ the world in Wall-E and, in the same film, they were the ones responsible of removing humans from Earth. There are BNL logos hidden throughout many Pixar films (check out Mr Negroni’s work for more detail).

Note that there is no massive war between man and machine – instead, the machines take over by using BNL to cater for their every need (see Wall-E). Overconsumption leads to overpollution. Overpollution leads to the animals (like in Finding Nemo) fighting back. When the animals start fighting back, humans use machines to stop them. But, all the pollution cannot be reversed and so humans leave Earth on the big BNL spaceship. What does that leave behind on Earth? Well, we know there’s Wall-E. But there’s also machines. Or rather Cars. Yup, this is where Cars fits into this theory – when the humans have gone the cars inhabit the Earth. Negroni delves further into the world of Cars and its sequel – with the hunt for ‘green’ energy when oil starts to run out. So at the end of Wall-E the cute lil’ robot liberates the chubby humans and then he plants the shoe containing the last bit of plant life on Earth. This then grows into a tree. A tree that looks remarkably like the one from A Bug’s Life. 

It’s interesting to note that humans are never mentioned in A Bug’s Life. Negroni believes that this implies that there aren’t many humans left on Earth during the events of the film (a very contrived corollary, I know). So we appear to have an almost utopia – humanity, machines and animals are living in harmony. Then eventually a new species emerges, what we call monsters. Yes, according to The Pixar Theory, the events in Monsters Inc. and Monsters University take place in the far future, when humans (somehow) have died out.

Now, you’re probably thinking ‘Wait a sec, don’t the monsters interact with humans? How can they be wiped out/in the future?’ Well Mr Negroni has a solution – time travel! Yup, that age old cop-out. Acording to Negroni, the doors that the monsters pass through allow them to travel back in time to when humans still populated the planet. And to avoid the whole ‘interacting with the past will affect the present’ paradox, the monsters enforced the ‘no human/monster interaction’ rules.

Kitty?

Now, we get onto Boo. The cute kid who, Negroni assumes, will spend her entire life obsessing about Sully – whom she met as a child. Now this is where it gets weird(er). Boo discovers the power that doors have (they can travel in time) and she tries to go back and forward in time to try and find her friend Sully. This leads her to the ‘source’ of the ‘magic’ in the world and she becomes…the witch from Brave.

She goes back to where all the magic began in the world in an attempt to try an cultivate it to find Sully. in Brave in the witch’s workshop, there is a carving of what appears to be Sully – a constant reminder of her friend she hasn’t forgotten after all these years. And that is how the Pixar universe began – with one child’s love for her friend and her desperate attempt to be reunited with him. That, in a nutshell, is The Pixar Theory.

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Now, Pixar themselves have heard this theory and flat-out denied it, which is sad in a way. It’d have been nice for them to at least leave it open to discussion, but hey-ho. Personally, I am a big fan of films that intersect with one another and so I would love to see a Pixar film that ties up every Pixar film to date in one aver-arching story. But I doubt that’ll happen.

So, what do you think? Do you think it makes sense (obviously there’s the time-travel bit that’s a tad contrived) in the grand scheme of things? Have a read of the full theory  and let me know your thoughts.

Tom

Superman/Batman

The Bat-symbol looks a little chunky…

Well the Internet has pretty much gone nuts today, with the news of Ben Affleck set to play Batman in Zack Snyder’s upcoming Batman/Superman crossover, due to be released July 17th 2015. Now, I could quickly turn this post into an ‘Oh my God, how dare Warner Bros. even consider letting the man who played Daredevil attempt to play Batman?!’ post, but I won’t. I look forward to seeing how Ben Affleck puts his spin on The Caped Crusader and will reserve judgement until I’ve seen the film. But, please don’t do a Daredevil…or a Gigli, for that matter. They were both terrible.

Instead, I’m going to talk about the film itself – so far a title hasn’t been released yet. Personally I’m opting for a combination of both names: Buperman – although he sounds more like an advocate for private healthcare and not an advocate for justice (or maybe he fights injustice through his healthcare system?) Anyway, I’m getting off-topic.

The whole Batman/Superman crossover idea has been in people’s minds for years, but did you know it was actually predicted in recent films and TV shows? Let’s have a look-see:

1. Previous Batman and Superman films. 

If you’ve seen Man of Steel then you’ll know what I’m talking about: the little Easter eggs that hint at a potential Batman/Superman crossover. There’s the Wayne Enterprises satellite that Zod crashes into.

There’s the ‘Keep Calm and Call Batman’ sign that’s only just visible (if you buy the Blu-Ray copy and have a 52″ television, then you’ll have a better view).

It’s a bit tenuous, but wait for the DVD.

Someone from Bleeding Cool has even managed to find the Batman symbol hidden in Jor-El’s Kryptonian suit.

Obviously the red is just for highlighting the symbol. Jor-El has some fashion sense…

There were many other Easter eggs in Man of Steel – some were just subtle nods to either people or places from the Superman universe. For a list of some Easter eggs that you might have missed, check out this brilliant guide by Empire.

But here’s one that’s just a little too contrived. We all remember the teaser poster for The Dark Knight Rises. No? Well here it is:

Now if you look on the left hand side you’ll see a piece of rubble. WRONG! You’ll, apparently, see a hidden Superman logo.

Hmm…

No one’s actually announced that this is genuinely an Easter egg, but it’s fun to imagine, right?

2. I Am Legend

In the abandoned Times Square in the film there’s a poster on the side of a wall advertising a supposed Batman/Superman film.

Not the best prediction for how the film will do financially…

Fans went nuts when they saw this: they thought it was viral advertising for the 2004 Batman/Superman film by Wolfgang Peterson, or perhaps Will Smith was set to star as Batman (just take a second to imagine that – Will Smith as Batman and Jaden Smith as Superman…). Sadly, in fact, none of these were true. Producer Akiva Goldsman put in the Easter egg as an in-joke, referring to the Batman/Superman project he was a part of that was stuck in development hell. Oh, and the apparent release date was March 15 2010, so there’s no link there – just in case you thought (in some kind of huge Hollywood conspiracy) that the events of I Am Legend take place in 2015. I must admit though, that would be freaking awesome.

3. Fringe

In the alternate universe (if you haven’t seen Fringe then I suggest you do so immediately) on one of the cinema displays it shows times for Superman vs Batman as well as a host of other potential films.

I would watch ALL these films.

This is probably another in-joke by Akiva Goldsman as he was also a producer on Fringe. But if I start seeing posters for Indiana Jones and the Hex of the Hydra or if JJ  Abrams announces Star Wars Episode VII: Legion of the Droids, I’m sitting tight until Mask vs Joker is out.

4. The Dark Knight Rises…again

Here’s a thought for you. Remember how much uproar there was about the ending of TDKR? How did Batman manage to escape the nuclear blast? Or was Alfred just imagining Master Wayne? How did he get from that pit prison all the way back to Gotham in what seemed like a few days? Well, what if he had help? By which I mean someone who could travel really really fast? Ok, I’ll spell it out – imagine if they revealed in the Batman/Superman crossover that it was Superman that got Bruce to Gotham after the ‘pit bit’ and it was also Superman that saved Batman from the nuclear blast?

There are two reasons why they probably won’t do this: 1) It’d piss off countless fans and, 2) it’d imply a connection to Christopher Nolan’s universe which can’t really happen – else they’d have to explain why Superman has just ignored the suffering of Gotham all this time (where was he when Joker attacked?) and they’d have to explain what happened to Jospeh Gordon-Levitt (he was all set to replace Bruce Wayne at the end of TDKR) and why Christian Bale has morphed into Ben Affleck (they could blame it on the radiation, I suppose…)

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Well that concludes today’s post. I hope you learned something or even just enjoyed yourself. All that remaains to be seen is how Ben Affleck copes as Batman. I wish him the best of luck.

Tom

J.J. Abrams’ work is getting ‘Stranger’

The light/dark motif will likely be sending Lost fans crazy.

I am a huge JJ Abrams fan: he was one of the pioneers into ‘intelligent’ television (with the phenomenal hit Lost) and his work is riddled with mystery and intrigue. Yesterday, his company Bad Robot released a delightfully enigmatic teaser trailer for Abrams’ upcoming project entitled Stranger. 

Followers of Abrams’ work will remember that his trademark ‘let’s release a trailer and not reveal anything’ began in 2007 with the release of the infamous Cloverfield teaser trailer that sent the Internet into uproar. This remains one of my favourite trailers ever released.

So by now we’re pretty used to the mysterious trailer for Mr Abrams, but what is it actually for? I mean, we all knew Cloverfield was a film – it has the ‘This trailer is appropriate for America‘ thingy before it, and the credits at the end. But Stranger doesn’t even have that: no release date, no website, no title!

Here are some of the fan theories as to what is may be advertising:

• Abrams’ new book, S., released in Ocotber
• Believe – a new TV show by Abrams and Alfonso Cuaron (Children of Men, Harry Potter 3)
• A Deadpool movie
• A remake of The Crow
• An Aquaman movie
• A Lost spin-off
• or (my current favourite) a trailer for Star Wars: Episode VII

So, it looks like we’ll have to wait for any more information to be released about this mysterious trailer. But I can tell you one thing, if it’s anything like Star Trek then we can expect a whole lot of lens flare.

Thanks for readin’ (that’s my new ‘sign off’, as suggested by my brother),

Tom

Pirates of the Caribbean 5: Is It Doomed From The Start?

Is it time to hang up the pistols, Jack?

I loved the first Pirates of the Carribean film: it was a fun cinema experience. The second one was alright, but started to get a little complex in terms of plot and then the third one just didn’t seem to end. Now, On Stranger Tides was where the franchise changed: the executives at Disney realised that Johhny Depp’s character Jack Sparrow practically IS the POTC franchise and so they focused on him for this film. They scrapped the Elizabeth/Will stroyline and concentrated on Captain Sparrow’s shenanigans on the high seas. In my opinion, they ‘over-Jack‘ed Depp’s character, but that’s another story.

A report done by NerdWallet has looked into the decline in ratings and box office takings for film sequels. We all have those films we can say ‘they weren’t as good as the first one‘, well now there is some data to try and prove this hypothesis. N.B. Being a mathematician I feel obliged to point out that whilst this data seems to prove the fact that movie sequels decline in quality and profitability, there were limitations to the test (not every film ever was involved in the test, for example). Plus, there are certain films that prove exceptions to the rule, which I will touch upon later.

The reason I (and the report by Mr. Anderson – wow, total Matrix moment) concentrate on the POTC franchise is because the decline of the series has been harsh: the first film received an average rating of 79% from critics; Dead Man’s Chest only attained 54%; then a measly 44% for At World’s End and, finally, a disappointing 33% for On Stranger Tides. That’s a drop of 58% from the first film (before you start questioning my maths, the drop in rating score is measured by percentage change, not percentage difference – the difference between the first and fourth’s average reviews is 46%). The same principle, it was found, applies to the box office ratings.

Next, using data from 130 film series (comprising of 475 films), Anderson looked at reviews from popular film review website Rotten Tomatoes and revenue figures from Box Office Mojo and he came up with the following graph:

So, if we are to go by the data (remember though: there are lies, damned lies, and statistics) and using linear regression (don’t even ask) we get an average rating for POTC:5 of 31% – which is a 61% drop than the original. Whilst the box office revenues are not much help themselves (some films don’t make anywhere near $208 million) but the percentage change in revenue can be calculated and analysed (feel free to do this at home).

N.B. POTC:5 hasn’t come out yet (it’s set to be released in 2015) and who knows – they may make a fantastic film that lives up to the excitement and adventure of the original: we can’t judge a film before it has come out – that would be silly. I am NOT saying ‘Don’t watch the fifth film – it’s going to be rubbish!‘ I am simply commenting on the interesting decline in ratings and revenue that occur for film sequels. 

Dammit, Bond!

As I have mentioned earlier, there are many many examples of film series in which the sequels haven’t declined in ratings or revenue: Fast and Furious 5/6, Saw II/III/3D, The Matrix Reloaded, the list goes on. There is an important collection of films that are huge exceptions to the rule: James Bond. The 007 franchise is a tricksy one, in terms of ratings and revenue because it doesn’t technically have sequels. As each film is a standalone story (OK, there’s a bit of continuation between the Daniel Craig films) its ratings aren’t affected by those of the previous film (just look at Skyfall – an average rating of 92% comapred to Quantum of Solace‘s 64%). That’s why this particular franchise wasn’t involved in Anderson’s report – as it doesn’t follow the sequential nature that other series do.

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So, a more serious blog post today – but I hope that you found it interesting. All statistics and facts were provided by Mike Anderson from NerdWallet – the full article is available here. Next up, I’ll have to post about the scary world of Hollywood financing – in which accountants try and prove that nothing has made any money.

Till next time,

Tom

How To Reboot Batman

In a similar vein to my previous post ‘Paranormal Activity 5: What They Should Do Next’, I have decided to write about how I think the Batman franchise should be rebooted. A reboot is inevitable: The Dark Knight Rises became the eighth-highest-grossing film of all time, raking in over $1.08 billion. This plus the fact that Man of Steel is a Superman reboot means that we can be pretty sure that DC are going to something Batman-y in the next few years. Just recently, Warner Bros. announced that Henry Cavill will be reprising the role of Superman in a Justice League movie, with principal photography beginning in 2014. But this post isn’t focussing on the Justice League, it’s focussing on Batman.

I think I can safely say that I have enjoyed every Batman film that Hollywood has produced (yes, even that one), and the different style that each film brings to the table. With Tim Burton’s films you get the emotional pain Bruce Wayne feels at the loss of his parents; with Joel Schumacher’s contributions you get crazy villains and nipples on the Batsuit; and, with Christopher Nolan’s version you get a more realistic tone to the story and, arguably, one of the worst deaths ever recorded on film.

But here’s the thing: I don’t want realism. 

Somehow I don’t think we’ll be seeing him in Justice League…

Batman, for me, is all about the villains. I mean really, really fucked-up villains. Everyone’s familiar with the classic bad-guys like Joker, Riddler, Two-Face etc. but there are so many forgotten ones: Mad Hatter, Clayface, Calendar Man and even The Calculator (I think at this point they’d probably ran out of ideas). Now some of these bad guys are seriously messed up in the head – Riddler was abused as a child by his father, as was Two-Face (by his own father though, not Riddler’s…) , and poor ol’ Penguin got into a bar fight and someone shoved a bottle into his eye. 

So what I’m suggesting is that for the next big reboot of Batman they should make it all about the villains. I would absolutely love to see origin stories for all the major Batman villains – and how they interact with one another.

See, the thing is, I don’t care about Bruce Wayne. Now that sounds pretty heartless, but I don’t care. I’ve seen his origin story too many times now, and if Hollywood tries to milk anymore out of it then I’m going to scream. 

Kinda like this, but more awesome.

So why not make a new series of films focussing on each villain, whilst having Batman as a secondary character? That way you’d get to see what made them become the villain that we all know and love. Villains are so much more interesting that good guys, especially when it comes to some of the weird and crazy characters of Batman. And, seeing as Hollywood is going through an ‘Avengers/Justice League’ phase, if they really wanted to they could tie all the films together with one Arkham Asylum-esque film at the end of the franchise. 

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Anyway, there are my two cents on what I would love to see in the next Batman adaptation. It probably won’t ever happen but hey – we can dream, right?

If you’ve got any thoughts/ideas on what you’d like out of a new Batman reboot, then feel free to leave a comment.

Tom

 

Paranormal Activity 5: What They Should Do Next

I love the Paranormal Activity franchise. Well, I loved it. Now I’m not as ‘in love’ with it as I used to be. The first film was fantastic: it was a fresh, original idea that genuinely scared me. And I’m only semi-ashamed to admit that it took me a little while longer to fall asleep that night. Then there was the second film. It was at this point the creators thought ‘Crap, we better add some kind of over-arcing story to this‘ and so we got the whole ‘demon-pact’ backstory. (Oh, that was a spoiler to those who haven’t seen it, oops.) The third film was better: I enjoyed the scares and we found out a teeny-tiny bit more about the girls’ past and their connection to the demon, ‘Toby’. By the time the fourth film came out, the creators had found their gimmick: make a movie every Halloween with some semi-decent scares and try and shoehorn in some ‘demon’ nonsense. And now we are expecting the fifth film – thoughtfully entitled ‘Paranormal Activity 5‘ – this October and I believe that this is going to be the make-or-break point: if it continues in the same vein as the others then it’ll fast turn into a new ‘Saw’ franchise; if not, then it’ll ‘rekindle’ the love that many people, including myself, had for the original film.

So in today’s blog post, I’m going to throw around some idea on how they could go about ‘fixing’ the franchise. Enjoy!

1. Tie everything together in one neat little bow.

One of the most infuriating things about this franchise is that, by the time you come to the end of a film, you have learnt next to nothing about what’s going on. I mean, take Paranormal Activity 4: at the end of the film there was the ‘alright-ish’ twist about the son (although, many many people could see that coming) and there was some more witches/creepy women. Well, in terms of the over-arcing story, we knew all that witch stuff from Paranormal Activity 3. The stuff about the son was just a little twist to keep that particular film from dragging.

Remember this?

So, after 4 films, the audience are left with so many questions: ‘What was the ritual the girls were going to at the end of 3?”; “Did Julie die at the end of 3?’; ‘What happened to Katie and Kristi between 3 and 1?’; ‘What about all those scenes that were cut from trailers (like the house fire)?’; ‘What is the demon going to do now that it apparently has a boy?’ I appreciate that not all these questions are going to be answered (otherwise they’d need 20 more films to do so), but in order to leave fans of the franchise satisfied, they’re going to need to answer most of them.

At the moment, the franchise is starting to feel a little like ‘Saw’: at about film number 5 it felt as though the creators were just adding more and more ‘flashbacks’ to try and milk as much out of the storyline as possible. Don’t get me wrong, I loved every Saw film, but I really don’t want to see the Paranormal Activity franchise go down that same ‘gimmick-y’ route. So yeah, Mr Oren Peli, please answer some of these questions. Ta.

2. Enough with the ‘found-footage’, already.

I really enjoy found footage films. I think they’re great. They give the film a ‘real’ edge to them, which works so well in horror films. That’s why the first Paranormal Activity was such a success: people thought it was real. But now, as we approach number 5, the novelty has worn off. In number 4, for instance, the whole Kinect idea was very well played, but when it comes to things like the Skype conversation it’s just predictable stuff that we’ve all seen before. The most innovative camera trick in any of the PA films is the ‘rotating camera’ used in PA3: where the camera is strapped onto a desk fan. Everytime that it cut to one of those scenes, I could feel the tension rising. It was very very well done and the franchise needs more moments like that.

Found footage presents many problems, in terms of storylines and film-making itself. The most commonly asked question from an audience is probably: ‘Why would you be carrying a camera while a demon is destroying your house? Why wouldn’t you just drop everything and get the fuck out of there?!’ In terms of film-making, you’re very limited as to what you can and can’t get away with: I mean, there’s only so many times we can watch a film about someone installing home security cameras before we get bored.

So, for this next film, perhaps they should move to more conventional styles of film-making. Scary films don’t have to be found footage films.

3. Do something completely different.

Picture this: a film about a coven of witches ‘initiating’ a new member. The film (that could be done as found footage) shows the trials and tribulations of a young, innocent girl who is thrown into a life of witch-iness. She takes part in rituals and even ends up sacrificing animals as she tries to come to terms with what she’s doing. We see the inner turmoil she is going through. Then, at the film’s climax, it’s her turn to take part in the ‘most important ritual of the century’: a human sacrifice to a demon. She agrees to go ahead with it, knowing that if she does, she will be a witch forever. The time comes for the ritual, then BLAM! We see Katie standing with her son, Hunter. It’s them that she has to sacrifice.

Now, wouldn’t that just blow your freaking mind?! To have that mahoosive twist at the end, and not knowing anything about it? I think that would be a fantastic way to end the franchise.

The thing is, when people go to see a Paranormal Activity film, they have assumptions on what they are going to see. We expect demons and things that jump out at us; we expect some form of ‘big scare’ at the end; we expect to be left with a cliffhanger at the end. But when people go and see a film they have little information about: they are completely open. I would love to see a film that looks as though it is no way connected to a Paranormal Activity film only to find at the end that it’s actually a sequel/spinoff/whatever you want to call it.

Not much family resemblance, I must admit…

A fantastic example of this are the films Cloverfield and Super 8. Both films feature a ‘monster’ of some sort. Plus, both films were the brainchild of the brilliant JJ Abrams. Now, there was much speculation on the Internet as to whether Super 8 was in fact a sequel/prequel to Cloverfield. Abrams denied this.

What I would have loved, and I mean loved is at the end of Super 8, after the father-son reconciliation and it cuts to black, just when the audience are about to stand up and leave, the following words appear:

“39 YEARS LATER”

Loads of news reports are heard. ‘New York in chaos’, ‘Hundreds die’, ‘worst attack ever seen’, etc. The scene cuts to a helicopter news footage of a headless Statue of Liberty (by this point the audience can guess what’s coming, everyone’s stomach starts tingling), it then cuts to a ground reporter in a ruined street. She tells the camera how this unexplained attack has left thousands homeless. She motions to the street behind her – ‘what once were people homes are now just empty shells, their memories scattered across the street’ – she bends down to pick something up. She holds something to the camera, explaining that this may have belonged to a little boy, Heaven only knows where he is now. The camera adjusts focus, and zooms into it. It’s a locket. Joe’s locket. The one that the Super 8 alien took. *beat* The monster from Cloverfield WAS the fucking alien!

CUT TO BLACK.

 

Now that would have left me shaking. I would have been speechless. Sadly, this was not the case. Don’t get me wrong, both Cloverfield  and Super 8 are fantastic stand-alone films, but what would have made them truly great is for a little tie-in between the two. Ah well, one can hope.

But, to get back on point, this is what the Paranormal Activity creators should do: a completely different horror film that is a decent film in its own right, but through some extremely clever writing, it manages to conclude the Paranormal Activity  franchise.

*

So that concludes my little list. I hope that it not only made sense but that you agree with some of the points I made. If you have any other ideas on how they might continue with this franchise, then why not leave a comment.

Tom.