Area 51

If there's ever been a film that represented the true bottom of the barrel for Found Footage, it's Area 51. Oren Peli apparently felt that if the style worked for his first film, it could work for his second as well. However, this is not even remotely the same type of story as Paranormal Activity. A Found Footage film about simple alien abduction might have worked, but when you're dealing with the infiltration of Area 51 you've taken on an entirely different beast.

The film might have worked if we had some truly compelling characters. However, most of the actors spend the movie sounding bored. Our lead character, Reid (Reid Warner, yes characters and actors share names again) is abducted by aliens at a party. He then becomes a conspiracy theorist obsessed with aliens, and tries to talk his friends Ben and Darrin (Ben Rovner and Darrin Bragg) into coming with him on his dangerous mission.

Along the way they pick up Jelena (Jelena Nik), a young woman whose late father worked in Area 51. After his death Jelena kept many of his files in secret, and is prepared to go with them. She believes her father was murdered for asking too many questions.

The only remotely compelling character is Ben, who we gradually learn only went along with the plan because he believed Reid would get over the idea. He has to struggle with the question of whether or not to continue, and ultimately decides that he will drive them, but will not enter the base himself.

The preparation scenes would have been interesting with better characters. I can believe that these are the kinds of preparations you might make when planning to break into a Top Secret Air Force Base, however none of the characters ever seem obsessed enough to go to the lengths we're being shown. Reid in particular should be a loose-canon if he's been so truly affected by his abduction, but he always seems to be just going along with the plan as much as anyone else. I never believe that anyone involved has the level of determination to really make this happen.

Once they're in the base the movie continues to fall apart. Bad CGI is still bad CGI, even if the camera is shaking a bit. We see all the amazing alien technology, and they even get a nice chase scene when one of the captured aliens is set free.

My best guess at explaining the ending of the film is that the aliens intended Reid to break into the base and free their imprisoned companions. Why such advanced aliens needed human help I don't claim to know. The film ends with all of our protagonists abducted, and apparently brainwashed. However, the aliens decide to leave lots of footage, including footage taken aboard their ship, while abducting the human witnesses. “Keep the humans, but throw out their recording device fully intact!”

As with the Paranormal Activity films it's clear this movie lacks any real sense of an in-universe editor. In one scene the characters film a group of strippers without their knowledge or consent. Why would an editor include that footage? Not only does it add nothing to the alien storyline, it opens him up to a massive lawsuit for distributing the footage! In the real world an editor would have, at best, acknowledged via text or voice over that the footage existed, while refusing to show it to the audience for liability reasons.

As for the usual complaint of “why are they still filming?” At one point a character continues to hold his camera at eye level while a soldier points a gun at him and demands he put his hands over his head. Apparently we as an audience are too dumb to figure out what's going on if the camera is pointed at the ceiling for a few moments.

This film is just uninteresting. Try as I might, I find nothing compelling to recommend it. It uses a genre intended to evoke realism, while utterly failing to make anything seem the slightest bit real.

Paranormal Activity

I don't like this series. For the most part, it's boring. Just boring. The story moves forward at a snail's pace, and the plot becomes dumber with each successive film.

That said, I don't really hate the first film that much. It was made for $15,000, and looks like it cost at least six digits, Given the vague name of the film, I can't help but wonder if they considered using the franchise as an anthology series, showcasing talented horror directors working with low budgets. I imagine we would have gotten something much better if they'd gone that path.

This first movie follows Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat (all characters share their actors' names in this entry), a young couple that just moved into a large house. Katie explained to Micah shortly before the film began, and right after they moved in together, that she's been haunted by a mysterious entity since her childhood. Micah immediately becomes determined to film the entity. He claims that he wants to find a way to get rid of it, but it becomes quite obvious quite quickly that he simply wants to satisfy his own morbid curiosity.

Over the course of the film the two come into repeated conflicts over how to deal with the entity. Neither side is completely sympathetic or unsympathetic in their views. Katie seems to have simply given up, and accepted that she'd rather live with the occasional supernatural activity than try to fight the being and risk enraging it. Micah, on the other hand, often seems intent on hitting a hornets' nest with a stick. He lays out powder to see if the entity leaves footprints, films everything in the house, and even brings in a ouija board.

Katie does bring in psychic Dr. Mark Freidrichs, who recommends contacting a Demonologist. Micah objects to the Demonologist, so by the time they attempt to call him he's out of town. Micah's objection here has always baffled me. He could easily have filmed a battle between good and evil, and instead chose not to. I really have no explanation except that the film needed to be dragged out longer.

The entity, for it's part, seems as much amused by Micah's efforts as angry. It burns a message into the ouija board, and even leaves footprints, which Katie assures Micah it left only because it wanted to. I'd say that at this point in the franchise, when we still knew so little, the being was a lot scarier.

There are several endings, all of which involve Katie leaving the bedroom one night, screaming Micah's name off-screen, and then apparently killing him when he comes. I'd say the original ending, created before the movie was purchased by Paramount, was likely the best (the police arrive, and the entity spooks them into shooting Katie).

That said, the ending we're left with is still quite intense, no matter how many awful sequels it leads to. Katie throws Micah's body at the camera, then crawls over next to it, showing a demonic look on her face, and attacks the camera. We're then told by a title card that Micah's body was found, but Katie's whereabouts are unknown.

This movie is far from a masterpiece. The characters constantly bicker, and neither of them are especially smart. However, their reactions aren't unbelievable, and the actors do a decent job of portraying two people who really shouldn't be together.

There are much worse products out there (including products in this series). This movie is at least worth a try. The same cannot be said for many later entries in this franchise, which as of this writing seem to have finally run the entire series into the ground.