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Film: Paranormal Activity 2 and 3

3 is by far the most interesting of the Paranormal films. They do a decent job in this series of expanding the visual grammar throughout, taking some camera conceits from the first, upping it in the second, and then upping it again in the 3rd. What's interesting about these movies, the more you watch, is the entirely different approach to filmmaking than say a "regular" movie. It all starts with the camera. In the more traditional approach to filmmaking, the one taught in film schools and modeled on the old studio system, it all starts with story and generally, story starts with character. Of course, throughout cinematic history, there are deviations from this way of making movies, but the storytellers, ie directors and writers and actors, undoubtedly come at it from character first. I suppose this comes from all the way back - Greeks and myths and Aristotle and Shakespeare and the stage to radio to film to tv. Not to say these films don't still employ storytelling or character, but it is more of an outside-in approach than an inside-out approach. Where is the camera? Why is it on? These are the first questions, preceding who is the protag and so forth. On first blush, it makes the more traditional film watcher think, jeez, this sucks or at least is rather clutzy in terms of storytelling. What the horror genre does, however, is replace the pleasures of narrative with the pleasures of fright and chills.

But now, with Chronicle and Project X, this visual language is being expanded into other genres. Strange days.