Paranormal Simulacrum.

As the horror genre in the industry of film has become progressively consumed with remakes and franchises, a very little population of this genre has succeeded in actually scaring me. The last movie I saw that genuinely frightened me was Eli Roth’s Hostel. This was due mostly because it seemed very realistic to me in terms of that type of situation in the film actually occurring in real life. Years before the blood and gore of Eli Roth’s horror, I found The Blair Witch Project to be particularly frightening; even more so than hostel.

But why Blair Witch?

It was a simple ghost story filmed by college students, no special effects, a low budget and filmed entirely with hand-held cameras.

First, I would like to attribute this style of film to contribute to Baudrillard’s post-modern concept of simulacrum, or simulations, that replace reality and enable one to misinterpret what is real and what is fake. The style of film-making presented in movies such as The Blair Witch Project and, more recently, Paranormal Activity have embraced this sense of simulacrum in order to invoke fear and genuine anxiety in the viewer. In other words, these movies are scary because they feel and look like the real thing. Most of the time, films such as these are even marketed as if they were an actual occurrence, enabling the viewer to misinterpret what is real and simulated. It is intentional for the film-maker to release the movie as a true story although it is a work of fiction, further contributing to the abundance of simulacrum in today’s society.

More recently, the film Paranormal Activity has embraced this style of film and has become one of the most successful movies of the year, making close to 104 million dollars with only an 11 thousand dollar budget. The film uses techniques that invoke simulacrum in a way that simulates a story as it unfolds in a realistic world. There’s no chainsaw killers, invincible murdering psychopaths, mythical vampires or zombies. This movie is presented as the real thing and that is what truly frightens the movie-goers of today.

Here is a trailer for Paranormal Activity:

Sources:

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2009/10/paranormal-activity-review/

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