Editorials
10 Years Later: ‘Paranormal Activity’ and the Effectiveness of a Simple Ghost Story
Ten years ago, Paranormal Activity hit theaters and instantly became a massive sensation. The story of a couple documenting their haunted house on video camera struck box office gold and scared audiences across the world. And rightfully so – found footage may not be for everyone, but there is no denying that Oren Peli did something special and created a film that is a uniquely terrifying viewing experience.
In 2009, the Saw franchise was beginning to wind down and studios were looking for the next property that would become a horror staple. Something they could continue on and release in new installments every Halloween. Something that would be a huge moneymaker and box office draw, and would send audiences home cheering and shaking. They found that in Paranormal Activity.
Though the original film told a contained story, over the course of multiple sequels, the series would go on to develop a complicated mythos that would include a coven of witches, a not entirely thought out prophecy and would incorporate a number of different characters and new families into this tale. With each new film came some new revelation about the history of Katie and her sister Kristi, the nefarious plans of the coven and the entity that would eventually come to be known as Toby. Some of the sequels worked well and maintained the low budget, DIY feel of the original, and others, less so. But with every new chapter, everything that worked about Peli’s original film would come to be watered down in the name of finding a new angle to give audiences for every October release date.
A number of factors converge to make the original Paranormal Activity so effective, but it all comes down to the simplicity at the heart of the film. Paranormal Activity works well because it is a very simple tale. A couple begins noticing some odd occurrences in their home after they go to sleep, so they set up a camera to document their room at night, hoping to catch something strange on video (and they do).
The first film works in a way that many of its successors don’t in that the plot is minimal. Normally, that would probably be a bad thing, but here, it works. It strengthens our belief in the premise of the film and it allows the individual moments to shine without being bogged down in too much backstory. We learn, along with Katie and Micah, about the strange happenings that go on in their home at night. We start with low level occurrences that might be deemed weird or creepy and we watch over the course of a couple of weeks as they intensify to something flat-out terrifying.
But we don’t ever learn very much about the entity that is plaguing them. It didn’t yet have a name. It didn’t yet have a purpose. We eventually come to learn that it has been a part of Katie’s life since childhood, but we don’t know the how or the why. It’s this “not knowing” that makes Paranormal Activity such an enthralling and terrifying film. It’s so much more frightening than an overblown backstory. Here, there is no hidden secret or an overarching sinister plot. It’s just the story of two people living in a haunted house and trying to cope with something that is entirely outside of their understanding and control.
Most of the ghost stories that we grew up with, be it a classic piece of folklore, a chapter from “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark”, or the neighborhood yarn of the creepy old house down the block – they are all pretty simple stories. The details are never pinned down and we rarely know much about the monster at all – it’s the idea of it that scares us the most. The idea, and what is left to our imaginations are enough to keep us up at night and make the story feel all the more real. And because of this, so does the plot of Paranormal Activity. It’s easy to get lost in this story because it fits that framework so well, and it doesn’t get too caught up in the details. Instead, it focuses on the scary scenes and lets those take center stage.
Added to that is the fact that the film was made on a tiny budget and had to utilize very basic effects and scare tactics. Those could have given the film a cheap look and feel, but instead, they helped to support the found-footage aesthetic. We settle very comfortably into the idea that we are watching the video that Micah and Katie made in their home and quickly forget that we are in a theater, surrounded by a hundred other people, watching a movie. We never see the entity, beyond the very rare glimpse of a moving shadow, and the scares, while frightening, are not terribly complicated. So there is little onscreen to remind our brains that what we are seeing was generated by a computer or some other level of movie magic. We more readily accept that what we are watching is real.
Peli’s use of pacing is another aspect that really works in the film’s favor. It’s a simple tool, but a highly effective one. It sets up a rhythm very unique to this film and helped to raise and lower the audience tension throughout the story. Almost all of the scary moments in the film happen at night, with daytime hours offering moments of respite. Every day, we know that we are, for the moment, safe. And at the end of every day, Micah and Katie get ready for bed and we know that something is likely to happen under cover of darkness.
Additionally, the camera uses a great trick to amplify this pacing and to set up a very palpable sense of dread. Every night as Katie and Micah sleep, the footage begins to fast forward, skipping forward through the hours they spend peacefully at rest, and bringing us closer to whatever strange event awaits them that particular night.
The time is captured on the camera’s counter, and the audience feels a sense of security as the numbers rush past – hours and minutes counting up toward morning. At some point though, the numbers will begin to slow, until the footage finally begins displaying in real time. It’s a cue to the audience that the hours or minutes of safety are at an end and that something frightening is about to take place. It might be small, or it could be major, but we are now tense and on the alert.
When morning once again arrives, we, like our characters, are able to breathe a sigh of relief. It’s easy to set aside the frights that took place in the shadows when the sun is shining and we are reviewing the recorded footage from the night before, trying to find a rational explanation for what happened. But when the brief respite is over, we once again find ourselves back in the darkened bedroom and are waiting tensely for the footage to once again slow.
The impact that Paranormal Activity had on horror cinema is undeniable. And though the series as a whole offers some interesting and even successful sequels, something about Peli’s first film remains particularly effective and special. It’s no surprise that such a financially successful film would spawn a franchise, but the first film is a good reminder that not every story needs a complicated mythology. Sometimes, the most effective movies are the ones that remind us just how frightening a darkened room can be.
I first heard about The Mandela Catalogue through a couple of nephews who were obsessed with the ARG’s sinister mythology. It was only after watching Wendigoon’s in-depth analysis of the series that I realized just how deep this rabbit hole goes.
In fact, I’d already been exposed to the nightmarish visuals of Alex Kister’s YouTube creation for years at that point without even realizing that it was the origin of several viral “cursed images” and spooky memes that had leaked into the wider internet – with this viral element actually being a part of the Catalogue’s overarching narrative.
Flash-forward to 2026 and the unprecedented success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms has led to Hollywood betting on horrific internet properties with existing fanbases, which means that Kister’s unique hybrid of both religious and analog horror is finally headed to the big screen with a script written by Kister himself alongside Tyler Clifton.
While this news shouldn’t be too surprising if you’ve been keeping up with the ongoing success of The Mandela Catalogue (both myself and Wendigoon having previously predicted that the series would inevitably make the jump to theaters one day), plenty of horror fans are likely confused as to why so many folks are excited for what appears to be a Hollywood adaptation of a series of creepy .jpeg images under a VHS filter.
With that in mind, today I’d like to invite fellow readers to accompany me as I explore the origins of Alex Kister’s viral hit and attempt to explain exactly why we should all be excited about the Mandela Catalogue adaptation!
From High School Writing Project to Internet Horror Phenomenon
The first seeds of The Mandela Catalogue were sown when Kister was still in high school and developed a writing project subverting religious tropes in a world where biblical history had been altered by demonic forces. A little while later, Kister came across an analog horror contest on Reddit and decided to adapt his ideas into a standalone video where he would edit a religious kids’ cartoon –The Beginner’s Bible: The Nativity, to be specific- into something far creepier. This is how the iconic Overthrone video was born, with this viral short film taking on a life of its own as fans demanded more eerie content from Kister.
Though the video was originally meant to be a one-and-done sort of affair, with Kister actually regretting some of its primitive visuals and considering the editing amateurish and “YouTube-Poop-like” when compared to his current standards, fan reaction and free time during the COVID-19 pandemic encouraged the (then) seventeen-year-old filmmaker to continue producing content set in this same world. The Mandela Catalogue name was inspired by the Mandela Effect conspiracy theory, as the series would slowly begin to explore the subtle horror of alternate histories.
Inspired by existential dread brought on by extended periods of quarantine as well as a personal crisis of faith, Kister continued to expand his alternate timeline where the rise of Christianity had been prevented by what was presumably the Devil disguised as the Archangel Gabriel. This alternate course of fictional events led to the existence of certain paranormal anomalies that had come to be accepted as “normal” by the 1990s, which is why most of the series’ supernatural horror is presented in such a matter-of-fact manner.
Most of this background information and religious lore is delivered by increasingly cryptic broadcasts and in-universe PSAs, as well as the occasional found footage video, that often have to be decoded by clever viewers. Of course, it’s the consistently disturbing imagery that made the series so popular – much of which was originally created by Kister on a smartphone!
The Alternates: Horror’s Most Unsettling Modern Monsters
The show’s early episodes mostly take place within the fictional Mandela County in Wisconsin and depict life in a world where demonic entities are capable of using media to enter our reality. This process usually involves scaring victims into killing themselves and then repurposing their bodies as horrific doppelgangers referred to as “Alternates”. This terrifying phenomenon has become so common that local police already have specialized procedures in place to deal with the issue, though this usually consists of simply ignoring calls for help so as to avoid spreading so-called “Metaphysical Awareness Disorder” any further.
Over time, Kister would expand this mythology and incorporate different kinds of Alternates into the mix, though the story never stopped deconstructing religious concepts. The series’ second volume exponentially increased both video quality and the overall narrative scope as we began to follow the lives of characters who had already grown up in this dystopian hellscape where the government is forced to prohibit religion, television, and even mirrors in the hopes of mitigating the damage done by the ongoing invasion of otherworldly entities.
The really interesting part comes into play when you realize exactly how the Alternates make use of scary media in order to spread their demonic influence, with the analog horror of it all being a diegetic part of the story and something of a memetic trap orchestrated by the false Gabriel.
I particularly appreciate how some characters begin to suspect that there’s something wrong with their version of reality and that things weren’t meant to play out this way, especially when Mark utters the haunting line “who have I been praying to all this time?” That’s why I think The Mandela Catalogue is an effective piece of religious horror even if you don’t subscribe to the Christian worldview, as the mere idea of a world where evil has already won is a universally terrifying concept in and of itself. Not only that, but the series’ uncanny analog imagery alone is already worth the price of admission, as you’ve likely already noticed by looking at the pictures accompanying this article.
Why The Feature Adaptation Could Be Horror’s Next Big Success
It’s actually been a whole year since Kister first announced that he had been working on a feature-length screenplay for a Mandela Catalogue movie since 2022, with his proposed story following an ensemble of high-school graduates who uncover a supernatural conspiracy after the mysterious disappearance of a fellow student. This premise sounds similar to narrative elements present in the series’ second volume, but I’m pretty sure that Kister is going to go the Kane Parsons route and make the movie more of a spin-off than a re-imagining of its source material.
While notable Hollywood producers like Aaron B. Koontz, Scott Stuber, and Steven Spielberg himself are backing the upcoming project, I feel like there’s no one better to adapt this deeply personal exploration of faith and the dark side of communication than the person who first came up with it. That’s why I can’t wait to see Kister’s work on the big screen, as I have a feeling that this young filmmaker is the next one on the list about to make cinematic history – especially since this is clearly a passion project that has been in the works for years at this point!
That being said, there’s always a chance that the film could end up unleashing a fresh wave of Alternate incursions, but I guess that’s just a risk we’ll have to take.
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