Editorials
‘Paranormal Activity 3’ And What I Learned At My “Tea With Toby”
Last week Paramount held a “Tea With Toby” at The Roosevelt Hotel in celebrate today’s DVD/Blu-ray release of Paranormal Activity 3.
What was “Tea With Toby”? It was a press event where I (among other journalists) was summoned to the hotel for a late afternoon Tea. Complete with sandwiches, smoked salmon, little pastries – what I had always imagined Tea being like in England.
We were there to discuss the film (and the franchise) with Oren Peli, Katie Featherston, Micah Sloat, Christopher Smith, Chloe Csengery and Jessica Tyler Brown. While it was a breezy and enjoyable 90 minutes, the gracious and polite Peli lived up to his notoriously tight-lipped reputation in regard to any new info on the series. And the cast followed suit.
But still, fun was had and, if anything, I walked away more energized to revisit the franchise. Hit the jump for the full report!
Upon my arrival at the hotel I was escorted through the main lobby, past the famous Roosevelt pool, and into a room darkened with pitch black curtains. Awaiting me was a vast array of teas, bottled water and snacks. Beer and wine was also offered but I passed.
Pretty soon cast and creatives from the Paranormal Activity franchise (along with my fellow journalists) began to wander in and take their assigned seats. In the corner, Teddy Ruxpin was set up with his own tea set which, if you’ve seen Paranormal Activity 3, requires no explanation.
Oren Peli, Micah Sloat, Katie Featherston took seats across from me and to my left, Christopher Smith sat directly in front of me, and across to my right were Chloe Csengery and Jessica Tyler Brown.
One of the most interesting dynamics of the day to witness was the interaction between Smith, Csengery and Brown. Their time onset during the shooting (and planned re-shooting) of the film clearly brought about a familial bond. Smith seemed to take a paternal role towards them, helping them gently with their answers (without putting words in their mouth) throughout the event.
One topic that did come up was the increasing budget size for the series. Don’t get the wrong idea, these films are still made very cheaply and of course provide a huge return on investment, but the first Paranormal Activity cost only a fraction of what they spent on PA 3.
According to Peli, while of course the crew is bigger on the films now and people get paid a little more, in the case of Part 3 much of it was spent on sound design, finding and renting a house and making it 80’s authentic, and making sure the film was ready by its October release date.
“ We did do some work on it. We didn’t want to throw the 80’s thing in your face too much though. We needed to dress it up. We just wanted it to look authentic. That this is what it would look like if video cameras were rolling in the 80’s.”
Smith added, “It felt like I grew up in that house“.
Now, can we get any insight on part 4? “Of course not“, Peli laughs.
Do you know where you’re going with it? “We have some ideas“.
I turn to Csenegry and Brown, hoping they won;t be quote as circumspect. How about them? Will they be in Paranormal Activity 4? “I sure hope so!“, says Brown. Clearly she’s learned from the best at not giving away too much!
Back to Peli, what is the benefit of the quick turnaround and tight shooting schedule on these films? “You always wish you had more time. The fact that you have a release date that is immovable, you have to get the movie made no matter what. It’s both a blessing and a curse. It’s a blessing because you know the studio will put their full resources into finishing it. It does force you to move quickly, which can sometimes be good. In feature development you hear stories about movies that take years and sometimes a decade to develop, but we know we’ll be out in October. But you always with you had more time. There’s always a panic that builds up when you have ten weeks until release, so you have to lock the picture four weeks before release, and you’re still shooting. It’s scary, but at the end of the day, if someone has an idea, normally you talk about it two weeks later. We talk about it that day and then shoot it two days later.”
Someone asks Csengery and Brown if they believe in ghosts. “Chris does“, they say laughing.
“Yes, that’s right“, he replies.
Someone asks Peli if its true that everyone onset is allowed to pitch ideas for sequences and scares in the film. “We definitely have an atmosphere where everyone is allowed to suggest anything no matter what their role is. And we have a ver small crew. We basically did ‘Part 2’ and ‘Part 3’ as one, so we’re kind of a ‘Paranormal Activity’ family and there’s a collaborative atmosphere. Everyone can feel free to talk to the writers, producers and directors and if it’s a cool idea we shoot it. We don’t care where it came from, only if it’s cool.”
About the home video release, do you think it’s actually more effective watching this at home? In a dark house? Peli replies, “I think it’s a different experience. To some degree there’s nothing like watching it in a theater with the energy of the crowd. It’s a much more communal experience. But watching it at home we’ve heard people say it’s scarier because it’s much more intimate. And also the subject matter is about what happens to you at hem alone at night. And people usually watch movies in the evening. So when you turn off the TV and have to go to sleep, you’re conscious of every little sound in the house!”
Watching the Blu-ray later that weekend, I have to say he’s right.
Paranormal Activity 3 is out on DVD and Blu-ray today. It boasts a host of special features including an extended cut that I prefer to the theatrical edition.
Paranormal Activity 3 Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack: The Paranormal Activity 3 Blu-ray is presented in 1080p high definition with English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, French 5.1 Dolby Digital, Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital, Portuguese 5.1 Dolby Digital and English Audio Description with English, English SDH, French, Spanish and Portuguese subtitles. The DVD in the combo pack is presented in widescreen enhanced for 16:9 televisions with English 5.1 Surround and English, French, Spanish and Portuguese subtitles. The digital copy is presented in English.
Blu-ray Special Features:
Original theatrical version of the film
Unrated version of the film
Lost tapes
DVD Special Features:
Unrated Version of the Film
Digital copy of unrated version—compatible with iTunes® and Windows Media
A trilogy DVD set will also be available on January 24th exclusively at Walmart, which includes the theatrical and unrated versions of all three films plus all previously released bonus material.
Editorials
Satan Wants You: The Real Life Inspirations Behind ‘Late Night with the Devil’
The 1970s– an era of “unrest and mistrust, fear and violence,” says the opening minutes of Colin and Cameron Cairnes’ Late Night with the Devil, accurately reflecting the viewpoint of the burgeoning moral panic of the time. Fear mongering-ish as that sounds, after a decade of Christianity in crisis mode– including a 1966 Times cover asking, “Is God Dead?”– and the “Satanic” cult murders by the Manson Family in 1969, the ’70s were a time of peak (at least until then) obsession with all things occult, planting the seeds and ultimately leading to what would be known as the full-blown Satanic Panic in the decade to follow. The devil was believed to be real, and he was to be feared, expelled, and/or worshiped– in real life and reflected in dozens and dozens of horror films and countless categories of other media within that era.
Late Night with the Devil toys with all this, of course, as we meet late-night talk show host and Johnny Carson ratings runner-up Jack Delroy, (David Dastmalchian), whose late wife has recently succumbed to breast cancer. Since her death, Jack’s show, “Night Owls with Jack Delroy,” has nosedived in ratings, desperate for Sweeps Week viewership gold. For his 1977 Halloween night live broadcast, show producers invite a psychic, a skeptic, and parapsychologist Dr. Ross-Mitchell (Laura Gordon), as well as her book subject Lilly (Ingred Torelli), whose recent survival from a mass Satanic suicide cult leaves a demon lingering in her body known as “Mr. Wriggles.” Frantic for the publicity boost, Jack and “Night Owls” show producers push Dr. Ross-Mitchell and Lilly to unleash Mr. Wiggles, ensuing chaos. All of this is counterbalanced by Jack’s mysterious involvement in an all-men’s Hollywood club known as The Grove (referencing actual elite Hollywood all-men’s club, Bohemian Grove).
The Satanic discourse began to make a serious imprint on Hollywood during its uprise in the late ’60s, after Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey released his 1969 book The Satanic Bible, befriending celebrities like actress Jayne Mansfield and filmmaker Kenneth Anger. LaVey would eventually appear on talk shows like Donahue and The Tonight Show, in attempts to explain/normalize/shock audiences regarding the topic of Satanism. However, it was the ritualistic nature of the murders performed by the Manson Family in Los Angeles that would instill major fear of Satanism in exchange of just morbid fascination, shaking Hollywood on a macro level, as music industry-reject Manson’s motives were partially tied to his dismissal from members of the Beach Boys, as well as one of his cult’s multiple victims being actress Sharon Tate and her unborn child with Rosemary’s Baby director Roman Polanski.
Late Night’s 1977 setting marked an especially memorable year for Satan in celluloid, with the likes of Suspiria and The Sentinel, however, it was the lasting impact of Polanski’s aforementioned 1968 film (and Ira Levin’s novel of the same name) that would go on to impact the legacy of the scared-of-Satan subgenre to a degree few other films have reached. Having the gall to depict Mia Farrow’s Rosemary being raped and impregnated by the Devil in an attempt to satiate her husband’s thirst for fame, Rosemary’s Baby would terrify viewers, rack up box office numbers, and prove to Hollywood that audiences were craving movies that validated their Satanic fears. Of course, this would also be proven again by the successes of The Exorcist and The Omen, clinging on to the last few bits of invalidating religious skepticism in the ’60s and ’70s, before the return of total Christian fundamentalism takeover in the Reagan era.
Akin to Rosemary’s husband’s desire to be a famous actor– behind his charm and effervescence of which only a likable talk-show host could possess– Jack Delroy, too, is on a self-serving quest for fame, as suggested with his association with The Grove club. With an amusing lack of subtlety, Late Night mocks its real-life equivalent, the Bohemian Grove, which has long been the subject of intrigue and controversy, including its male-only members that have included American business leaders, ex-presidents, oil tycoons, and musicians via invitation-only, as well as serving as the first discussion place of the Atomic Bomb (a detail curiously left out of last year’s Oppenheimer). For its annual gathering known as the “Cremation of Care,” Bohemian members perform a sacrificial ritual to the area’s surrounding Redwood trees, donning costumes and cremating a coffin effigy called “Care” before a 40-foot owl statue, (coinciding with “Night Owls”) allegedly to banish members’ outside worldly cares and complete deference and dedication to the club location’s forest. Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones famously infiltrated the grounds and captured footage of the ritual in 2000, claiming to have witnessed more nefarious activity (which a spokesperson for the Bohemian denied). Though its origins date back to as early as the 1870s, so little is factually known about the social elitist club, as it has been largely a source of speculation-only.
A few fictional years shy of the real-life phenomenon, Late Night’s secondary story regarding Dr. Ross-Mitchell and her muse, the sometimes-possessed Lilly, draws explicit inspiration from the 1980 book Michelle Remembers, written by Lawrence Pazder and Michelle Smith, with a tagline exclaiming, “The shocking true story of the ultimate evil– a child’s possession by the Devil!” As explained in length in the 2023 documentary Satan Wants You, the memoir detailed Smith’s alleged childhood memories of purported abuse at the hands of Satan-worshippers, which she recalled through the process of the now-disregarded “recovered-memory therapy,” or hypnosis. Pazder, Smith’s longtime psychiatrist and eventual husband, manipulated Michelle into “remembering” allegations that she was forced into attending Church of Satan rituals as a young child with her mother, some of which Satan himself appeared, and that Smith was tortured and assaulted in outrageous ways, including being forcefully touched by sacrificed newborn babies and other corpses.
The success of the book led to Pazder and Smith becoming sensations and so-called “authorities” on Satanic ritual abuse, as television appearances on talk shows such as Oprah fascinated the public, of which the hosts never questioned the book’s validity. This would serve as the blueprint for years to come, as talk shows like The Geraldo Rivera Show– who, similarly to Late Night’s “Night Owls,” hosted a Halloween-time special about related occult topics in 1988– sensationalized stories like these for ratings and frequently reinforced false narratives about “Satanic cult abuse” that were eventually discovered to have been false. Michelle Remembers was later debunked.
Few talk shows, especially of the late-night variety, spotlighted supernaturality for viewership as often as American-born, Australian-based host Don Lane, whose show The Don Lane Show lasted from 1975-1983 and served as the primary inspiration for the crux of the screenplay, the Jack Delroy character, and Dastmalchian’s approach to the role. Fascinated with guests that worked in the paranormal field, (but not necessarily as exploitative of them as his peers), Lane regularly hosted several psychics and investigators during his talk show tenure, including illusionist Uri Geller and spiritualist Doris Stokes. During one notorious broadcast in 1980, Lane hosted Geller and skeptic James Randi, in which Randi would not relent on attempts at debunking Geller’s spoon-bending trick, which infuriated Lane so much he told him to “piss off” and stormed off his own set (ripped right out of a page in real-life and mirrored on-screen in Late Night).
While the decades of myths that fueled the Satanic Panic may feel asinine to those of us who grew up with science and skepticism, its ripple effects still continue to bleed into questions of what constitutes unhealthy relationships to media, believing what we’re told and shown, and the dangers of lack of media literacy. Visual entertainment– filmic or televisual, scripted or captured– may not be responsible for its audiences’ relationship to moralism, as Late Night with the Devil forces us to question just how far we’re willing to be outside-influenced for entertainment. But, damn if the Devil doesn’t know how to put on a great show.
Late Night with the Devil comes home to Shudder on April 19.
You must be logged in to post a comment.