NARRATOR: “Welcome back to Reign of Terror 2019! 31 straight days of horror movie reviews and interviews. Today’s episode will feature Jimmy, Matt, and Kellie of the Pop Pour Review Podcast, who will be reviewing 2007’s landmark franchise starter, ‘Paranormal Activity’. A promo will run before the review.”
NARRATOR: “But for now, let’s turn out attention back to the fate of our host, in Part Five of “WORLD WITHOUT COLOR”.”
SCENE: Darkness
JIMMY: “Who’s this?”
KELLIE: “I dunno. Seems familiar.”
MATT: “Looks like he lost his night vision goggles. There they are. Jimmy, help me sit him up. Kellie, get the goggles, let’s get them strapped on.”
NARRATOR: “Joseph heard all of this faintly, slowly regaining consciousness, trying to process what happened last time.”
JOSEPH: “Who...”
KELLIE: *radio crackle* “O.M.S. - this is Bravo Team. We found him, somehow still alive. Our window is closing, but we can get him to Andrew.”
JOSEPH: “Andrew? What’s going on?”
JIMMY: “Easy, Joseph. Have a drink of this. It’ll help.”
NARRATOR: “A canteen was placed to his lips, and he tasted a slightly sweet, slightly bitter concoction, somehow fruity and savory, and just a hint of...”
JOSEPH: “What is this?”
JIMMY: “Special recipe. Helps with recovery and memory. Don’t worry. No booze. Now, you know what’s in this room, right?”
NARRATOR: “Joseph tried to remember.”
JOSEPH: “Cutouts?”
KELLIE: “Exactly. The carnival stores the cutouts in this room. I’m going to turn the goggles on.”
NARRATOR: “Once activated, Joseph saw the large cutouts. Some had holes for attendees to take pictures. He laughed at himself for being so scared.”
JOSEPH: *laughing* “That’s funny. So, Andrew?”
KELLIE: “He’s up ahead. We gotta hurry, though, because...”
NARRATOR: “At that moment, a mysterious figure that registered as a white mass moved quickly behind the furthest cutouts. The night vision made the figure creepier that it probably should be.”
JOSEPH: “What was that?”
MATT: “Trouble. Look, we can hold it off, but you need to head out that door. Jimmy!”
JIMMY: “I see it.”
JIMMY: “Lock and load.”
MATT: “All right, Kellie. Get him to the door. I’m sure this isn’t the only one.”
KELLIE: “You got it.”
NARRATOR: “Jimmy and Matt turned towards the figure, now quickly darting behind the different cutouts. They began firing their weapons, emitting what looked like lazer bullets, each burst slightly blinding them. Cutouts exploded in larger flashes. It was becoming harder to track the figures.”
KELLIE: “MOVE!”
NARRATOR: “Kellie and Joseph ran towards the door. A second figure joined the first one, which was now bleeding from a missing arm. Jimmy and Matt kept firing, forcing Kellie and Joseph to look away towards the door. At another break in the fire, they looked back to see a third figure sneaking up behind the two of them.”
KELLIE: “What? No!”
NARRATOR: “They watched in horror as, quickly, the figure pounced on Jimmy, taking him to the ground. The lack of gun fire made Matt look over, just in time have a fourth figure drop down on him.”
KELLIE: “Go now!”
JOSEPH: “But...”
KELLIE: “Just go!”
NARRATOR: “She shoved him through the door, then pulled it closed and locked it. Gunfire exploded from behind the door, as she screamed in fury at whatever was attacking them.”
JOSEPH: “Now what?”
NARRATOR: “Joseph turned. It was another hallway, heading towards... another room? An exit? Find out tomorrow in Part Six of “WORLD WITHOUT COLOR”, when we’ll be joined by our own Andrew Campbell, who will be reviewing ‘Tigers Are Not Afraid’. Will Joseph survive another day, or will he finally be chalked up with the rest of the dead?”
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<< POP! POUR! REVIEW PROMO >>
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KELLIE: “Hey guys, I'm Kellie.”
JIMMY: “I'm Jimmy.”
MATT: “And I'm Matt.”
KELLIE: “And we are Pop! Pour! Review. We're guesting on today's Reign of Terror! You can find us on Twitter and Instagram @poppourreview, or via email poppourreview@gmail.com. You can subscribe and download the podcast on all the usual podcasting sites. Today we are doing... we're reviewing ‘Paranormal Activity’ (2007), the found footage horror film is written and directed by Orin Pelli.”
MATT: “Okay, so, the film surrounds Katie and Micah, as they move into a house in the suburbs but soon become haunted by demonic presences every night. This is the... this is the first very successful franchise.”
KELLIE: “It's a lot scarier than the way you made it out to be.”
MATT: “I know.”
JIMMY: “Yeah. So, everyone to be warned, this will be spoilers. You... there will be a lot of spoilers.”
KELLIE: “Spoilers.”
JIMMY: “We are giving away the ending in this review. Just to let you know.”
MATT: “So, let's start from the beginning. This film restarted the found footage genre after ‘The Blair Witch Project’ and that came out in 1999. This film has become a horror staple since its premiere and was a massive success in the independent cinema, as well as horror cinema.”
KELLIE: “Okay, well, let's talk about the movie itself. So, the movie's about a couple named Katie and Micah that move into a house which they thought was a perfect suburban home, but this house becomes less than perfect. It's no longer their ideal home. When Katie starts becoming haunted by spirits that she says have been attached to her since she was a child, this is when Micah, her husband. It’s her husband, right?”
JIMMY: “Or boyfriend."
KELLIE: “Or boyfriend. Whatever. Micah, her significant other, sets up a video camera in their bedroom, not for things that we... usually see people do that for.”
JIMMY: “To catch the demons.”
KELLIE: “But to see what kind of spooky or spoopy haunting happens during the night.”
JIMMY: “Spoopy is my favorite Halloween word of all time.”
KELLIE: “I love spoopy. Spoopy should be an official word.”
JIMMY: “This movie is not spoopy. It is spooky. It’s scary.”
MATT: “I think it's spoopy."
JIMMY: “It's spoopy.”
MATT: “It's the definition of spoopy.”
KELLIE: “It's definitely not spooky, especially from what I've heard of how you reacted to it."
MATT: “I'm very terrified of spoopy movies.”
KELLIE: “Matt tell us how you reacted to this spoopy movie after you first saw it.”
MATT: “You want the whole story?”
KELLIE: “Yes."
JIMMY: “Well, I'll actually... I like to tell this story because me and him were like, ‘Let's go see a movie!’ And we want to go... we're going to go see ‘Couples Retreat’.”
KELLIE: “Oh my God, that was so different.”
MATT: “Yes and yes it is.”
JIMMY: “And that was sold out. So I secretly bought tickets to ‘Paranormal Activity’.”
MATT: “And I'm getting a snack.”
KELLIE: “Wait, hold on, how old were you Matt?”
JIMMY: “I was 18.”
MATT: “So I was 16.”
KELLIE: “You were like 15.”
MATT: “15, but I wasn't into horror movies at all then. And literally, I'm literally getting, like, a snack. He comes up, he's like, ‘So, I have some bad news.’ I was like, ‘What?’ He's like, ‘We're not seeing the movie anymore.’ I was like, ‘Oh, so we're going home?’ He's like, ‘No, we're seeing “Paranormal Activity”.’ And then we are in line to literally go watch the movie and I'm, like, trembling.”
JIMMY: “I was like this because, this was when it was in like 30 theaters.”
KELLIE: “You were not 18 in 2007. You graduated high school in 2009.”
JIMMY: “I was able to buy tickets."
KELLIE: “So you were like 16 or 17.”
JIMMY: “I was able to buy the tickets.”
KELLIE: “So that makes you 13 or 14.”
MATT: “Yes, I was not a big horror person at that point.”
JIMMY: “I was able to buy the tickets somehow and I just remember, yeah, he was terrified. I was laughing.”
MATT: “The guy next to us waiting in line was laughing at me because I was just like, ‘Jimmy, can we just please go home? Can we please go home?’”
JIMMY: “I was like, ‘No, we're going to see this movie.’ But I remember being like, ‘No, I did not like this movie at all.’”
MATT: “You didn't like it?”
KELLIE: “You didn't?”
JIMMY: “No, I did not. The first one... I thought it was stupid.”
MATT: “Which one do you like?”
JIMMY: “I like the second one.”
MATT: “Oh, the first one was great.”
JIMMY: “Do you remember me laughing hysterically?”
MATT: “No."
JIMMY: “And the woman behind us turned around and said, ‘Please stop laughing. You're ruining the movie.’”
KELLIE: “I thought you really liked this movie.”
MATT: “This... I don't remember that at all. I was a little too preoccupied, like my face in the seat.”
JIMMY: “I don't like the movie. Uh, did you guys like the movie?”
KELLIE: “Well, we already know Matt didn't like it.”
MATT: “No, I, thinking back now, I hated it just because it was scary, but like, thinking back, I actually really liked it.”
KELLIE: “Um, I was terrified of this movie because I didn't see the one in... I didn't see the theatrical version. So, so I saw the one that they were showing at the film festivals with the original ending, which is 100% scarier than the theatrical ending. Like it is so much scarier. So in the theatrical ending isn't it that they like throw.”
JIMMY: “Micah.”
KELLIE: “She throws Micah against the camera and that's it. In the, in the other ending they showed at the film festivals, it's her just standing in front of the camera for like another hour and then she slits her wrists, she kills the police officers I think, or something. And she comes back in the room and she's just staring at the camera and she slits her throat. I could not go to bed that night. I was so scared and one of my friends was sleeping over, and I was just like, texting the entire time, just being like, ‘I can't go to bed. I can't go to bed. We're so stupid, why did we watch that?’”
JIMMY: “Yeah, I remember seeing that on YouTube and I was like, that is a much better ending. But my name is in the credits of the movie.”
KELLIE: “What?”
JIMMY: “Yeah.”
KELLIE: “Why?”
JIMMY: “Because they had this, like, bring it to your theater and anyone who did that, their name was in the credits of the movie on the Blu-ray.”
MATT: “But also I was, like, scared of that original ending just because like, for some reason, no matter if I see the jump scare coming, I will, I will literally, like, I will jump at a jump scare no matter what. Like, I am the definition of that person. So, like, when they threw the, uh, Micah, his body at the camera, I literally was like, nope. And I had like, like, my seat, like, I like, lifted off my seat. I was like, ‘Oh my God!’ That one sounds creepier, or the one you said, but I'm just like, that one made me jump.”
KELLIE: “I was so scared that Katie was going to walk into my bedroom, stand at the doorway with her, like, disgusting black demonic eyes and just like slit her throat in front of me.”
MATT: “I know."
KELLIE: “I, like, was crying because of how scared I was.”
JIMMY: “Yeah, I was, I got in trouble after taking him to that movie cause my parents were like, ‘No.’”
KELLIE: “You clearly lied. He was like 13 or 14, not 15/16.”
MATT: “And look at us... and look at us now. I'm the one who can go to haunted houses. And you're terrified of yes.”
JIMMY: “Yes.”
KELLIE: “Yes, all right. So, on Rotten Tomatoes, ‘Paranormal Activity’ has an 83%, which makes it certified fresh. On Metacritic, it has a 68, which is positive. So, on a scale of one to ten, what do you guys give it? I give it a seven, because I was scared of it, but the up until, like, the last ten minutes of the movie, it is pretty boring.”
MATT: “I'll give, I'll just give it an eight, just because like, how scared I was during it, and just thinking back, just like, it's pretty, like, an original type story. I just, the way they did it, I thought it was different.”
JIMMY: “And I'm going to give it a four because I thought it was silly.”
KELLIE: “Even though after that it was just found footage horror films were one right after another.”
JIMMY: “Yes, and that brings it to a six for Pop! Pour! Review that that's, that's, that's, that's...”
MATT: “like just top shelf.”
JIMMY: “It's just top shelf but it's, you know, like the cheaper, a little bit of the cheaper stuff but it's there.”
MATT: “It just made it.”
JIMMY: “It just made it. Good job, ‘Paranormal Activity’. You just made it into our good list.”
Rotten Tomatoes: 86% (CERTIFIED FRESH)
Metacritic: 68
One Movie Punch: 6.0/10
JIMMY: “So yeah, ‘Paranormal Activity’ is rated R for language and it's available for rental or purchase on all major streaming sites and it's perfect for a little Halloween spookiness.”
KELLIE: “Or spoopiness.”
MATT: “Always take the spoopiness.”
JIMMY: “Thanks for listening, and we hope you enjoyed our review of ‘Paranormal Activity’. Have a Happy Halloween from us at Pop Pour Review.”
KELLIE: “Bye.”
MATT: “Booooo!”
KELLIE: “Ew.”
