What a night, what a night! Bloody Disgusting's own Tim Anderson (Tex Massacre) and Brad Miska (Mr. D) just hosted a very special Hollywood screening of Paranormal Activity. While the Arclight screening didn't win a party, Paramount still showed up to give attendees to the sold out screening a special gift bag, free popcorn and drinks, and gave away some seriously badass prizes to three lucky winners (I'm super jealous). In addition, stars Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat both came by to introduce the screening with Bloody Disgusting and took ten minutes out of their hectic schedule to do an exclusive one-on-one interview (one of the first ever)! Read on for the pictures and interview. Make sure to write your reviews after you finally see the scariest movie of the year.
After a few weeks of silence, Bloody Disgusting was lucky enough (to be one of the first people ever) to interview Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat, the two stars of Paramount Pictures' smash-hit ghost film PARANORMAL ACTIVITY. Here's the play-by-play, along with a ton of photos from tonight's event, which took place at the Arclight Cinemas in Hollywood, CA.
“Two years that you've been waiting for this, did you ever expect anything like this?”
"No, no!," Featherston exclaims with pure excitement. "I mean, we believed in the film, but everything that is happening is absolutely is 100% above and beyond what we ever could have hoped for."
"It's beyond anyone could have imaged, " adds Sloat, "it's too good to be true."
Featherston: "I haven't wrapped my head around it yet,"
“So, the first time you saw the movie was at Screamfest here in LA two years ago?”
"Yeah…Yes,” they both confirm with Sloat continuing, "It was the first time anyone had seen it."
"That's true," says Featherston.
"It was an incredible experience, it was the first time we realized we had something worth seeing."
“Was there this feeling as to 'why is this not coming to theaters, why is it sitting there on the shelf?”
"I always really trusted Oren (Peli), explains Featherston of her relationship with the director. "He was always very committed to the project and to seeing it through. I trusted that he would make the decision and was very good about keeping me in the loop. It was kind of like everything's gonna happen the way it's supposed to. I didn't have control so it was putting my trust in him and saying my prayers."
“Would you say the movie was mostly improve or was there a script to follow?”
Sloat explains, "The whole thing was improve, he had a kinda of…"
"…vision and idea and structure," add Featherston.
"Yeah, he had a timeline he had scenes and exposition and beats we had to hit, but in terms of dialogue it was completely improvised."
“A lot of readers want to know if you all knew each other before the shoot.”
"Nope, we came up with that relationships in about 5 seconds on a call-back," says Featherston. "We met at the call-back and kinda had to start."
“How did you channel the energy to act in the film?”
"It's about listening and being really open and honest to the moment and listening to the other person. That's where it starts," says Featherston.
"Something that helped us is that we never knew what was going to happen next, Oren wouldn't tell us," Sloat add. "So we couldn't really pre-plan out emotional states or where we were going with a particular scene."
Featherston: "Once we got in the groove of our relationship there wasn't any problem making it fresh, we were always changing it up."
Sloat: "There's something about the chemistry that we had initially, there was something magical that was happening on that set, I can't describe it… I know it sounds cheesy." (laughs)
“Was it creepy shooting in the house? Did it give you nightmares?”
"We were filming there around the clock," says Featherston.
"We kinda lived in it. There wasn't really a separation between the acting and living in the house," adds Sloat.
Featherston: "We were shooting and then it was like 5 hour nap and then back to filming. There was no…. ok we have tonight off."
Sloat: "There was one night where we shot like a quarter of the entire movie in one night. Extensive, all night long, Katie was bruised all over her body and had rug burns."
“Did you ever get a phone call saying, 'you know, this might be the next BLAIR WITCH?' “
"This whole process happened one tiny, tiny, tiny step at a time," says Featherston. "The first amazing thing that happened was Screamfest, then I was like 'oh my god this is amazing!', then we got representation and I was like 'oh my God our lives are changing!', then Oren got picked up by CAA, then Steven Spielberg got involved in the film, then Paramount came in and then every thing was kind of incredible all the way up until now, I can't even…"
Sloat jumps in, "It was like a rollercoaster, it goes up and its like oh-oh-oh we're getting a deal… oh, it's a remake deal."(laughs). "It was a lot a long period of stuff, we really got to give it up to the fans and Paramount for listening to the fans. Ultimately, we made this for the hardcore horror fans , that's why we did it, that's who we were thinking about in every scene and every take. To know the fans appreciated and demanded it…that's all we could ask for."
“You reshot the ending like, what 52 times?” (laughs)
"Yeah, 52-53 times," Featherston jokes with a laugh.
"We filmed the first ending in the first seven day stretch, then we came back for a weekend 'cause Oren had another idea," adds Sloat. "Basically, we were shooting endings for a really long time."
"So long…"
Sloat: "We have like a vault full of them."
Did Steven Spielberg really handcraft the ending?
"He did, he did," Featherston says with a huge smile. "He had a number of really amazing ideas that we shot, this one really kind of clicked. To have Steven Spielberg excited about your film is… "
“The greatest thing ever?”
"I know! Yes!" Featherston glows.
Below you can check out some pictures from the event.
sweet, sounds like it was an awesome time. wish i could have been there,im insanely jealous! what all was in the gift bags? nice to finally hear from the two leads about the experience. i loved this movie and cant wait for the dvd!
I really hope they have alternate endings on the BD release. The ending on the dvd screener that's floating around sucked. Typical Hollywood ending. Not too surprising that Speilberg of all people was involved.
I personally thought the original ending sucked balls. It was the most anticlimactic ending ever, worse than blairwitch. All kinds of build up, and just when you think your really going to see something crazy, the ending happens and your just like ..... oh. In fact if they showed the original ending in the theaters right now, I think alot of people would leave thinking the movie sucked balls. This movie is certainly not as great as the hype surrounding it. It has its moments but its no "Exorcist" or original TCM.
Just so you know this full of himself highschool kid loved the movie lol.
So was that Spielberg story of him getting locked in his room complete bull shit? And i gotta find this other ending your all talking about, where is it?
Cool post, good to hear from the two leads and I had no idea 'bout the Spielberg connection. and again... the theater ending is MUCH better but now im looking forward to a DVD/Blu-ray which has some MORE of these endings! Great flick, go see it now!!!
BLOODY-DISGUSTING .... DID THEY REMEMBER TO BRING YOUR CHECK FOR HELPING TO PROMOTE THIS PIECE OF GARBAGE ... MUST HAVE PLACED IT IN THE BOTTOM OF THE GIFT BAG SO NO ONE IN ATTENDANCE WOULD CATCH ON. ..... YOU DEMANDED MONEY AND YOU GOT IT!!!
Great post; wish I could have been there. Just saw this one and all I can say is that I was pleasantly surprised. I haven't been creeped out like that in a long time. The execution was spot on from start to finish.
The Mighty Griff: My check is on the way, when I get it, Im moving to Hawaii so I never have to read your comments again. Because, you know, I'm making millions. Im so rich that I sit here and listen to your bullshit everyday. Use some f'n' logic.
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