Movies
[BD Review] Lauren Says If You Like ‘Scary Movie,’ You’ll Dig ‘Supernatural Activity’
Remember when the remake of Fright Night did a take on a Criss Angel type of figure and it was kind of funny? Well, Supernatural Activity opens with a take on that and I’m still unsure if I found it funny or not.
I’ve seen about a million parodies of ghost hunting shows in movies, and Supernatural Activity plays out like a parody of a parody of an adaptation. Maybe, just maybe, someone wrote it as a serious movie and then they reread it and realized it sucked, so they turned it into a comedy. If that’s the case, Supernatural Activity is actually really smart.
The intro to the film is reminiscent of Pulp Fiction, yet is cuts shorts, ending with a message stating if you want to learn more about the cast and crew, just skip to the end credits. The story is the same song and dance you’ve seen before. The ghost hunting show Supernatural Activity is bogus; it’s all about the ratings. Pervert fan bases (the fans that think if they could meet a certain celebrity they could “get” said celebrity) keep leader Damon Dealer “single” which puts a damper on his relationship with his girlfriend, Blair. Damon wants to save an Indian burial ground (which he has to keep correcting himself into calling it a Native American burial ground) for their season finale. However, Blair is insisting the team go to Hicksville to find a mythical creature named Smallsquatch.
Apparently, this hairy wizard born of Sasquatch and a witch tickles victims to death – or something like that. The movie follows the characters along, parodying popular horror films as they go. Damon is afraid that if they prove the creature is fake, he will not be able to marry Blair, who is hoping to find fame by proving it’s real. Everyone is a little too eager about doing EVPs once they arrive and ultimately find out there is some sort of spirit within a house they find.
For some reason, Smallsquatch is a demon that can speak through Damon. I think this was just done so that actor Andrew Pozza could display his various acting abilities with a bunch of impressions. It sort of gets old, though he is pretty great in that instance. Actually, Supernatural Activity is really well done. It’s well acted. Hell, the plot actually is quite entertaining.
I’m a fan of parody movies, but throughout most of Supernatural Activity, I was unsure if I liked it or not. The pervert fanbases joke had me smiling, as I know the exact type of fans they were making fun of. The idea that the team is really into doing EVPs is choice as what ghost hunting show isn’t the same way! However, the abundance of goofball humor that borderlines on not being funny had me questioning if I was just trying not to like it. Out of the entire movie, there was one scene that had me convinced it was pretty damn OK. The scene? Blair and Damon having phone sex. It is the most glorious scene ever. Why? Because it is exactly how I think. I have no differentiation between goofing off and being, uh, mature. So, with lines like “I rub your taco like a rabbit’s foot” and referring to Damon’s “garden snake” before rating the sex at 8.153125 or something, the movie was saved. Well, a bit.
Ultimately, if you like goofball movies in the realm of Scary Movie, you’ll like Supernatural Activity. It is a well made film with a plot that is so bad that it’s pretty good.
Genre fans rejoiced this week as Peacock finally released a teaser trailer for the upcoming Crystal Lake TV series starring Linda Cardellini as horror’s favorite killer mommy. This sneak peek is actually the first footage of an official Friday the 13th project since the Platinum Dunes remake came out over 17 years ago, so it makes sense that we’re all incredibly hyped for this long-awaited prequel.
While we’ve since received more information about the show -including how all eight episodes will be released at the same time on October 15– fans wasted no time in speculating about the direction they think showrunner Brad Caleb Kane intends to take the franchise next. After all, Kane’s team is free to adapt elements from the entire Friday the 13th franchise, so it seems that anything goes at this point. That being said, I doubt we’ll be seeing young Jason depicted as a fun-sized killer with an affinity for hockey masks, as I’m of the opinion that the show is likely reaching back to the original actress behind Pamela Voorhees herself in order to fill out the prequel’s story.
You see, after sifting through behind-the-scenes interviews and plenty of special features from my own Friday the 13th collection on physical media, I learned that the late, great Betsy Palmer had come up with an elaborate backstory for Ms. Voorhees that was never properly explored in the films. She may have only accepted the iconic role because she needed money for a new car, with Palmer notoriously referring to Victor Miller’s original script as a “piece of shit”, but that didn’t stop her from taking her work seriously – and eventually even warming up to the now-iconic film.
Trained in the Stanislavski Method, an infamous system where actors use the “art of experiencing” to more realistically portray their characters, Palmer decided to build off of Miller’s script and make her own notes in order to characterize Pamela as a more complex and arguably sympathetic figure, even if only a fraction of her contributions would actually make it onscreen.
The only real information she found in the script concerned her character’s prominent class ring, and from there Palmer extrapolated an entire backstory where Pamela had a high school boyfriend during the 1940s that got her pregnant and then skipped town. This led to Pamela being forced to raise her child all on her own during a deeply conservative period in American history – another reason why the character is so bothered by the camp counselors’ promiscuity.
It was Tom Savini who first revealed to Palmer that Jason was going to be depicted as being disabled (an idea that wasn’t in the original screenplay), with this crucial addition making the actress realize that Ms. Voorhees was already overburdened even before the death of her son. The tragedy only pushed her over the edge as she became a puritanical vigilante attempting to shut down Camp Crystal Lake at any cost.
For Palmer, this means that “Camp Blood” never had any curse, as the multiple fires and poisoned water incidents that kept the camp from reopening before the summer of 1979 were merely part of Ms. Voorhees’ years-long vendetta against the property’s owners. Palmer also insisted that the killer in the sequels isn’t the original Jason, as he definitively drowned at the bottom of Crystal Lake. According to her, having Pamela’s child return even as a killer revenant would undo her entire character arc, meaning that the masked murderer who takes over her legacy must be someone or something else entirely!
CRYSTAL LAKE — (Photo by: Matt Infante/PEACOCK)
These ideas match up with most of what we’ve heard about Peacock and A24’s plans for the upcoming series, which is set to follow Linda Cardellini as Pamela after she gives up a career as a singer in order to take care of her disabled son, played by Callum Vinson. That’s why I wouldn’t be surprised if the writing team decided to borrow from the woman behind the machete in order to make the series more authentic to the source material.
Of course, there are rumors floating around that the show could also feature a teenage Jason in some capacity, so we’re still not sure about how exactly Kane and company plan to adapt their project to the franchise’s ever-changing mythology. That’s why I’d like to invite fellow readers to comment below with your own theories about where you think the prequel show is headed!
For now, I think it’s safe to say that Friday the 13th fans are more than ready to binge-watch Pamela’s bloody origin story when it finally drops this October. And who knows? Maybe the show’s success could finally lead to a new mainline film…
CRYSTAL LAKE — Pictured: Linda Cardellini as Pamela Voorhees — (Photo by: Peacock)
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