Booze Talkin #21

Last Updated on July 26, 2021

Paranormal Activity vs. Ghostwatch

While everybody and their (my) mother were busy comparing the newest horror sensation, PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, to THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT this past month, I couldn’t help but wonder why nobody sees the direct link this film has to ‘Ghostwatch’, the British mockumentary that aired on TV back in 1992, Halloween night. Both search for answers regarding ghosts and their haunting of a family, both involve possession, both will scare your pants off. But, is one more de-panting than the other? Let’s take a look.

For the most part, PA involves a lot of the above, the horror of what you can’t see. Light’s go on by themselves, doors move, powder is tracked, fires are lit, all by an unseen force. GW toys with this concept for a while and then starts to slip in these little subliminal images of the culprit. His name is Pipes, and there are at least seven different moments during the show when his bloody face pops up and hammers you with goosebumps. It might seem a little cheesy frozen in time below but there have been few times I’ve been this creeped-out watching anything before, or after, seeing this shit.

And don’t let the fact that GW aired on television fool into thinking it’s light on the scares. The show was officially banned from British television for a decade after it aired and has still never been shown again (except in other regions). Many of the viewers thought the show to be a real and live investigation. The Broadcasting Standards Commission received 34 complaints about the show being too scary for the BBC including one couple that blamed them for the suicide of their 18-year-old, mentally challenged son five days after it aired. I’m not saying this makes it better than PA but there’s something to be said about a show that makes people complain about how scary it is. After watching GW, some dude killed himself. After watching PA, Steven Spielberg told them to change the ending.

It’s amazing that two stories so similar can take off into such entirely different directions. PA is riding the wave of word-of-mouth and clever advertising to giant piles of cash and talks of a franchise while GW simply packed it in and made themselves a hidden gem before anybody else died because of them. They have, however, started to creep out of their shell recently with ‘Ghostwatch: Behind the Curtains’, a retrospective documentary that’s been in development since last year. Maybe, with the help of PA, it’s time for the creators of something so brilliant to finally cash in.

Maybe it’s the booze talking but I think I prefer a face to go along with my ghouls (or in the very least, a name). Having doors slam and loud bangs in the middle of the night in PA are just more of those cheap scares I’ve come to hate about modern horror, no matter how you film them. A quick jump-out-of-your-seat moment with nothing to follow it up with. And whether or not you’d like to admit it, PARANORMAL ACTIVITY has a whole lot of nothing going on.