Saw vs Paranormal Activity

There was some news last week that a Mr. Kevin Greutert, who has been the editor of the Saw series since the initial installment, and the director of Saw VI had his directorial feet ripped out from underneath him when Lionsgate said that they would exercise an option on Greutert’s contract that forced him back to the Saw franchise to direct the seventh Installment.  Stuff like this happens all the time, studios get jealous or vindictive and sabotage the competition.  Sometimes they do it for spite and sometimes they just plain old want the director back and were slow in creating a new deal.  This is an unfortunate part of the business, but the most surprising part of the whole ordeal is the fact that the job Greutert was pulled from was helming the sequel to Paranormal Activity… which Paramount plans to release on the same day as Saw VII. 

The internet went wild with unfounded speculation.

It looks as though we viewers were thrown into a gauntlet that we didn’t even know existed.  Paramount Studio, who marketed and distributed Paranormal Activity, realized that their franchise was a big moneymaker (when it… made a lot of money).  This of course, is the same Paramount Studio that sold the rights to any future Friday the 13th films to New Line Cinema back in the 90s but have all of a sudden seemed to have changed their ethos and decided to get back into the franchise horror movie spamming game.  As we all know, Saw has been around annually for the last 6 years having their installments basically rule the horror scene (and box office) around Halloween.  On the opening weekend, the Saw films would be somewhere in the top three (also, Saw installments 2, 3, and 4 all debuted at #1).  On the weekend of October 23rd to the 25th in 2009, Paranormal Activity dominated Saw VI during the biggest part of its slow roll out release.

So somehow (and please if anyone knows how this conclusion was reached, please tell me) Paramount decided that they could take this low budget scare fest and turn it into a successful annual franchise.  This logically makes me wonder if any one of these people actually saw Paranormal Activity or did they just see a headline that said “low budget horror film dominates” and were dumb founded that this could still happen in the days of 200 million dollar event films.

This brings me to my first actual point of the pieces.  I feel that even though Paranormal Activity was a great movie, it is not going to make a serviceable franchise without traipsing through terrible town.  Why do I say this?  Because I’ve seen every Hellraiser film, that’s why.

I know what you’re saying “Hey Poppascotch, have you been huffing compressed air again?  What does Paranormal Activity have to do with Hellraiser?”  First of all, yes I have been and second of all, the similarities between the first Hellraiser film and Paranormal Activity are, well… interesting to say the least.   Well, Ok, as far as tone, gore, story, plot, and camp factor go then they aren’t very similar at all.  What I’m talking about is the similarity in the simplicity of the core narrative.  Look at this example of a grossly oversimplified synopsis:

Paranormal Activity: Girl pursued by Demon.  Demon takes over girl, ruins lives.

Hellraiser: Man opens devil box to great pain, ruins lives.

Still don’t see the similarities?  I’ll make it easier then, the glaring similarity is that there is enough material and steam for one movie.  Hellraiser went ahead to make 7 more movies, based on the strength of Pinhead and his other cenobites, which with the possible exception of Hellraiser 2, were all absolutely terrible.  Literally every movie involved the same three part plot:

  • 1: Someone finds the box
  • 2: Same person opens the box
  • 3: Shit gets real

I mention all of this because I care.  I liked Paranormal Activity, and I feel that just maybe, there could be enough wiggle room for another installment and for it to be successful, but for the love of god, take your time with it.  Don’t push one out every year just for the fact that you want to compete with Lionsgate and the Saw franchise.  I still to this day don’t know how Lionsgate keeps putting out the product quality they do with such a small turnaround, but they do and they make it work.  This whole move by Paramount just seems so… childish.

The next question worth asking here is who really wins in this situation?  Sure the studios will win because people will become territorial with their franchises while some of the hard core horror community overlap but either way, the studio is getting paid.  No, the real winner here is you, the fan. 

You see, if Saw does get an annual competition, it’s going to force them into new and interesting territory.  They will have another big gun to compete with, so the final product by that philosophy will be better because of the competition.  Who knows, two years from now, we may be praising the dueling franchises of Saw and Paranormal Activity for bringing horror back into the limelight, inflating fandom to levels only seen when Jason, Freddy, and Michael Myers would be annually spraying blood all over the screen.  Maybe it’s going to make a bumbling paradox of terrible movies that culminates in the end of horror film as we know.  I have no way of really knowing, I’m just chucking out guesses at this point. 

What do you think is going to happen?  Would an annual Halloween horror franchise war create some really good films, or would the release window become more important than the story?  Could this be the beginning of a new horror heyday, or something terrible?  Let’s hear about it!