PARANORMAL ACTIVITY IN NEW YORK
I wear a crunched-up beat-down cowboy hat everywhere. Which wouldn’t be so out of place in Texas, but tends to stick out in NYC. I had just called the Landmark Sunshine theater in New York to get a sense of the line that might be forming for the midnight screening of Paranormal Activity. It was seven o’ clock. “What time do you think we should get there to get in line?”
“Well I got people in line right now.”
My heart sunk. We were in Norwalk, Connecticut. About an hour away.
“How many people are in line?”
“Not more than twenty right now,” he said. And then: “But it’s gonna get craaazzy.” I broke for the stairs to the car where my friends were waiting, engine running, but I didn’t make it two steps down before I realized that the faint, familiar squeeze of the hat band on my head was missing. I went back up for it. My hat is simple. Straw. Warped, not by design, but by sweat and heat and tough love. There’s a hole in the crown you could put three fingers through.Little did I know, My Hat would play a significant role in whether we got in to see what is being touted as one of the scariest films of all time. Eight thirty. The line at the Sunshine was three thick and had just turned the corner when we brought up the rear. The man I’d spoken to on the phone told me the theater held 260 seats. We were dying for a beer. First, a head count. I paced the line pointing out a lazy count and taking note of all the film fans. The kid by himself at the front, sitting there for God knows how long. I caught snippets of conversations on everything from Troy Duffy, to Asian film marathons and saw t-shirt after geeky t-shirt: Evil Dead, Pulp Fiction, Blade Runner. I was excited. Too rarely have I been involved in the screening of a film, that had the heat, anticipation, and electricity of a rock show. We were numbers 71-75. For a brief moment we entertained the idea of leaving, the four of us, for an hour. What hurt could an hour do? But a rational mind spoke up and it was decided we would go in pairs around the corner to the bar for thirty-minute beer blocks. In a half an hour, the line doubled. Upon returning from my second line reprieve I was a taken aback. The line had continued to lengthen, but more alarmingly, it had thickened considerably. I was informed that a squat little man in a suit had come round counting and told my cousin that our spot was 122. We had lost fifty places. But we were still comfortably in the middle of the max number of seats… Weren’t we?At about eleven o’ clock the line buckled and moved, there was a roar of excitement. This was going to happen. We were going to see this thing. After two years of hype and wonder and waiting we were going to be among the first to either dispel the rumors, or fuel this little movie’s fire. And then nothing really happened for forty-five minutes. The statement we’d all read when we RSVP’d --THE MOVIE STARTS PROMPTLY AT 11:59-- didn’t appear to have any validity to it. There were hundreds of us still outside. Mumbles of a bungled screening began to disseminate. And then, it happened. Without warning. The squat little man in the suit strode back to where we were, and from the curb, curt as could be, said:“You’re not gonna be getting in.”Shit hit the fan. People were shoving and screaming, barking at Squatty McSuit Man. When it was clear he neither could, nor cared, to explain, the line turned blob and oozed toward the doors. An exasperated young man with a clipboard screamed himself hoarse at the mob. One man answering to angry hundreds. He had a folder of fliers with an email address announcing the next screening: “If you want to know when the next screening is, take one of these and email me…”A young man took one and promptly tore it to shreds in his face.
“If you want to tear it up, FINE! You won’t get to come to the next screening. The people who email me, will be invited to the next screening. We only had so many tickets and we have to get the press in too, DO THE MATH!” He pointed at another door where a hoard of people waited with press-passes. An addition I hadn’t even considered when calculating our spot in line.The crowd was livid, alive with protest. --Why didn’t you come around with numbers?”
--Why make us stand here for hours if you KNEW we weren’t going to get in?My friends were ready to throw in the towel. They had pushed past the crowd and were looking back, wondering why I hadn’t given up. I approached a professional-looking woman with a clipboard who seemed to have some sort of authority and asked her simply why it had gone so wrong?“We overbooked, on purpose to make sure we filled up, and a lot more people showed than we thought. But, if everybody calms down,” she said, “we might show it again.” She disappeared inside. I knew we weren’t going to hang around for a two a.m. screening. Two in my group had early work back in Connecticut. But I lingered… Just another minute.And suddenly the door burst open, and with no regard for the lunging swarm or how they might react to such a statement, the professional-looking woman said to the exasperated hoarse-voice guy: “I NEED TEN MORE!”The crowd surged and the man screamed and the woman looked at me and said:“Cowboy Hat Guy, come on!” I was shocked. She remembered. I had spoken to her calmly, rather than adopt the mob-mentality. And the hat. The sore thumb in a sea of shaggy hipster hair. In an instant I had to mourn for the crowd who had waited just as long as I, and simultaneously accept the gift before it was taken away. But first I was somehow able to blurt out: “I have three more.”
“Get em, let’s go!” she said. And I watched as my girl, my cousin, and his girl, were allowed through the crowd like friends of the band. We had gotten in to the sold-out rock show…
We were ushered in and waved away from concessions and took the stairs down two at a time, giddy and grinning. The theater was packed, humming. Unfortunately we were guided to the front row, where necks go to die. After a quick introduction from someone from ShockTillYouDrop, one of the studio heads from Paramount took the mike. He talked about how small the film was, how it was made for eleven thousand dollars, and how now, more than ever, the movie business needs films like it. He said he was in town on other business but decided to swing by the theater and couldn’t believe the turn out. Said he’d been emailing colleagues back in L.A. who thought he was full of shit. He spoke casually of someone named STEVEN at Dreamworks. And then, the giant red head of some giant geek engulfed the screen and introduced the film for a final time. I have to admit, sheepishly, that I scoured torrent sites for a year looking for this film. Not because I wanted to see it for free, but because I wanted to SEE IT, period. The idea, that a film so revered by the few who’d seen it, might be locked away until a who’s who of Hollywood vampires could find a way to suck the authenticity out of it, was devastating. I wanted to see it the way Mr. Peli had originally made it. The first time, when all he had was a camera, creativity, and big fat cojones. I wasn’t interested in the proposed mulligan version, which would have found him armed with a money hose and standing with suits over his shoulder. I have to say I’m ecstatic I never found a bootleg. The experience of being in that historic theater, at midnight, with a mob of film freaks was one of the most memorable movie-going experiences I’ve had. It was a beautiful reminder that getting up and getting out and actually going to the movies is as much a national pastime as anything else we have. And it’s never going to go away. Much has already been written of the film itself. Scariest. Most. Ever. The Exorcist. And hype is a dangerous old flintlock pistol, threatening to backfire. It’s hard to live up to praise like that. But the movie is unquestionably, a triumph. Over the Hollywood system. Of ingenuity and suspense. And it’s a funny little fucker too, full of cathartic release laughs that only help make the moments of terror more effective. I sat in the dark with hundreds of strangers shrinking in on myself and realizing I’d been holding my breath only after I exhaled. Paranormal Activity is exciting, tense, funny, unsettling and at times, completely terrifying. Scariest? Most? Ever? Maybe not. But if you can manage to go in not expecting that, it may just be.
“Well I got people in line right now.”
My heart sunk. We were in Norwalk, Connecticut. About an hour away.
“How many people are in line?”
“Not more than twenty right now,” he said. And then: “But it’s gonna get craaazzy.” I broke for the stairs to the car where my friends were waiting, engine running, but I didn’t make it two steps down before I realized that the faint, familiar squeeze of the hat band on my head was missing. I went back up for it. My hat is simple. Straw. Warped, not by design, but by sweat and heat and tough love. There’s a hole in the crown you could put three fingers through.Little did I know, My Hat would play a significant role in whether we got in to see what is being touted as one of the scariest films of all time. Eight thirty. The line at the Sunshine was three thick and had just turned the corner when we brought up the rear. The man I’d spoken to on the phone told me the theater held 260 seats. We were dying for a beer. First, a head count. I paced the line pointing out a lazy count and taking note of all the film fans. The kid by himself at the front, sitting there for God knows how long. I caught snippets of conversations on everything from Troy Duffy, to Asian film marathons and saw t-shirt after geeky t-shirt: Evil Dead, Pulp Fiction, Blade Runner. I was excited. Too rarely have I been involved in the screening of a film, that had the heat, anticipation, and electricity of a rock show. We were numbers 71-75. For a brief moment we entertained the idea of leaving, the four of us, for an hour. What hurt could an hour do? But a rational mind spoke up and it was decided we would go in pairs around the corner to the bar for thirty-minute beer blocks. In a half an hour, the line doubled. Upon returning from my second line reprieve I was a taken aback. The line had continued to lengthen, but more alarmingly, it had thickened considerably. I was informed that a squat little man in a suit had come round counting and told my cousin that our spot was 122. We had lost fifty places. But we were still comfortably in the middle of the max number of seats… Weren’t we?At about eleven o’ clock the line buckled and moved, there was a roar of excitement. This was going to happen. We were going to see this thing. After two years of hype and wonder and waiting we were going to be among the first to either dispel the rumors, or fuel this little movie’s fire. And then nothing really happened for forty-five minutes. The statement we’d all read when we RSVP’d --THE MOVIE STARTS PROMPTLY AT 11:59-- didn’t appear to have any validity to it. There were hundreds of us still outside. Mumbles of a bungled screening began to disseminate. And then, it happened. Without warning. The squat little man in the suit strode back to where we were, and from the curb, curt as could be, said:“You’re not gonna be getting in.”Shit hit the fan. People were shoving and screaming, barking at Squatty McSuit Man. When it was clear he neither could, nor cared, to explain, the line turned blob and oozed toward the doors. An exasperated young man with a clipboard screamed himself hoarse at the mob. One man answering to angry hundreds. He had a folder of fliers with an email address announcing the next screening: “If you want to know when the next screening is, take one of these and email me…”A young man took one and promptly tore it to shreds in his face.
“If you want to tear it up, FINE! You won’t get to come to the next screening. The people who email me, will be invited to the next screening. We only had so many tickets and we have to get the press in too, DO THE MATH!” He pointed at another door where a hoard of people waited with press-passes. An addition I hadn’t even considered when calculating our spot in line.The crowd was livid, alive with protest. --Why didn’t you come around with numbers?”
--Why make us stand here for hours if you KNEW we weren’t going to get in?My friends were ready to throw in the towel. They had pushed past the crowd and were looking back, wondering why I hadn’t given up. I approached a professional-looking woman with a clipboard who seemed to have some sort of authority and asked her simply why it had gone so wrong?“We overbooked, on purpose to make sure we filled up, and a lot more people showed than we thought. But, if everybody calms down,” she said, “we might show it again.” She disappeared inside. I knew we weren’t going to hang around for a two a.m. screening. Two in my group had early work back in Connecticut. But I lingered… Just another minute.And suddenly the door burst open, and with no regard for the lunging swarm or how they might react to such a statement, the professional-looking woman said to the exasperated hoarse-voice guy: “I NEED TEN MORE!”The crowd surged and the man screamed and the woman looked at me and said:“Cowboy Hat Guy, come on!” I was shocked. She remembered. I had spoken to her calmly, rather than adopt the mob-mentality. And the hat. The sore thumb in a sea of shaggy hipster hair. In an instant I had to mourn for the crowd who had waited just as long as I, and simultaneously accept the gift before it was taken away. But first I was somehow able to blurt out: “I have three more.”
“Get em, let’s go!” she said. And I watched as my girl, my cousin, and his girl, were allowed through the crowd like friends of the band. We had gotten in to the sold-out rock show…
We were ushered in and waved away from concessions and took the stairs down two at a time, giddy and grinning. The theater was packed, humming. Unfortunately we were guided to the front row, where necks go to die. After a quick introduction from someone from ShockTillYouDrop, one of the studio heads from Paramount took the mike. He talked about how small the film was, how it was made for eleven thousand dollars, and how now, more than ever, the movie business needs films like it. He said he was in town on other business but decided to swing by the theater and couldn’t believe the turn out. Said he’d been emailing colleagues back in L.A. who thought he was full of shit. He spoke casually of someone named STEVEN at Dreamworks. And then, the giant red head of some giant geek engulfed the screen and introduced the film for a final time. I have to admit, sheepishly, that I scoured torrent sites for a year looking for this film. Not because I wanted to see it for free, but because I wanted to SEE IT, period. The idea, that a film so revered by the few who’d seen it, might be locked away until a who’s who of Hollywood vampires could find a way to suck the authenticity out of it, was devastating. I wanted to see it the way Mr. Peli had originally made it. The first time, when all he had was a camera, creativity, and big fat cojones. I wasn’t interested in the proposed mulligan version, which would have found him armed with a money hose and standing with suits over his shoulder. I have to say I’m ecstatic I never found a bootleg. The experience of being in that historic theater, at midnight, with a mob of film freaks was one of the most memorable movie-going experiences I’ve had. It was a beautiful reminder that getting up and getting out and actually going to the movies is as much a national pastime as anything else we have. And it’s never going to go away. Much has already been written of the film itself. Scariest. Most. Ever. The Exorcist. And hype is a dangerous old flintlock pistol, threatening to backfire. It’s hard to live up to praise like that. But the movie is unquestionably, a triumph. Over the Hollywood system. Of ingenuity and suspense. And it’s a funny little fucker too, full of cathartic release laughs that only help make the moments of terror more effective. I sat in the dark with hundreds of strangers shrinking in on myself and realizing I’d been holding my breath only after I exhaled. Paranormal Activity is exciting, tense, funny, unsettling and at times, completely terrifying. Scariest? Most? Ever? Maybe not. But if you can manage to go in not expecting that, it may just be.
