Paranormal Activity's Original Ending Online
Paranormal Activity's original police ending has finally been uploaded online. If you haven't yet seen the wide release version I recommend not downloading the ending until after you've seen the full cut. Context is everything for this film.
Watching the ending for the first time, I would say my response closely matches my initial impressions upon reading a user's description of the ending. Basically I think the original makes better use of the dread than the current ending (although I would have preferred fast forwarding through Katie's 'rocking' rather than a plain dissolve), but it does feel a little anti-climactic by not fully confronting our own position as spectators (which seems like the key to a good ending for the film).
UPDATE
*SPOILER*
Notice at 5:22 of the video the bathroom light mysteriously turns on in the background and then turns off just before the police reach Katie. The police later note that the bathroom door is shut despite it previously being ajar when the light was on. Presumably the light indicates the demon leaving Katie just before she is killed by the cops.
Watching the ending for the first time, I would say my response closely matches my initial impressions upon reading a user's description of the ending. Basically I think the original makes better use of the dread than the current ending (although I would have preferred fast forwarding through Katie's 'rocking' rather than a plain dissolve), but it does feel a little anti-climactic by not fully confronting our own position as spectators (which seems like the key to a good ending for the film).
UPDATE
*SPOILER*
Notice at 5:22 of the video the bathroom light mysteriously turns on in the background and then turns off just before the police reach Katie. The police later note that the bathroom door is shut despite it previously being ajar when the light was on. Presumably the light indicates the demon leaving Katie just before she is killed by the cops.
Labels: paranormal activity
posted by David Marin-Guzman at 5:09 PM
12 Comments:
Why is the alternate ending even up. I think it's wrong.
been reading alot of entries on your blog. great stuff. love dissecting films. wish i was around when you broke down The Dark Knight.
the sound of the bathroom door slamming is what caused the already nervous cops to fire. ;)
Wow, good spot joy. just noticed it. This ending really has a lot going for it! Shame it doesn't fully pay off.
I watched the film with this same original ending. I think its best this way. But what i continue to be bewildered by is the fact that micah's dead body is still downstairs(seen by the girl's friend the night before)...yet the cops don't find it?
They find his body, you can hear them calling out to the dispatch that they have one male body, no pulse.
the alternate ending is now disabled but if you watched closely, the light in the other room went on and off... then the door opened wide and then slammed shut just a moment before Katie was shot.
even in the less eerie ending, the events were so well thought out.... while i prefer the current theatrical ending, this one creeped me out! wheee!
I think the theatrical ending is, on the whole more effective than the police ending. Perhaps I spoiled myself by reading about the police ending before seeing it, but the version in my head was much creepier than the one they filmed, from the time dissolves (much less disturbing than a time lapse shot would have been) to the amateur acting from both the cops and from Kate.
I still think the film is brilliant, and it was one of the most effective horror-movie watching experiences I've ever enjoyed.
This ending is my favorite one. I mean, the theatrical ending definitely scared the crap out of me, and I think it really feeds the audience's fear (I slept with the lights on after I watched this movie), but the original is better. In several reviews of this ending, the leaving of the demon is overlooked completely. If you listen carefully, you can hear light footsteps before the light is turned on and then off again. I agree with joy, the door slam is definitely what made the cops fire. I think paramount didn't like this ending because there isn't so much for the audience to fear with just the demon out there and not katie. especially if it repeats its pattern, only 8 year olds have to worry.
@cerebral beast. don't have a reading of Dark Knight myself but the most interesting one I read was this one: http://naughtthought.wordpress.com/2008/07/25/the-dark-fall-or-badiou-into-zizek/
The piece looks at the Joker as representative of a kind of radical drive to chaos - one which actually has an ethical, revolutionary component to it in that it seeks to realise the ex-nihilio zero point of the subject. Two-Face on the other hand represents chance. In contrast to the Joker who embodies chaos in such a way that he can't contain himself, Two Face becomes obsessed with his own capacity for chaos - such that chaos slips into chance, becoming a kind of narcissistic, self-serving victimisation rather than a radically violent identification. As the writer of the piece says, the true danger the film presents is not the hero living long enough to become the villain but this slippage from a radical ethical stance into a narcissitic self-serving position.
I think Roger makes a valid point with the alternate-alternate ending's in-your-face act of violence of her (it) slicing her throat. But aside from that, I think the ending in theaters is great. It's eerie because of the way she sleep walks and stands over him, and that the way she screams is not altogether human, which leads you into what you know is finally the end for the guy who you know has it coming. But the reason I like it the most, is because it's almost like the demon is saying up yours. He throws the corpse of the person he's pissed at into his own camera! Then it's creepy again with the possessed walk across the bedroom. The only part I didn't like was the morphing face that jumps at the camera into black-out. I thought the smile was good, but not the morph. WAY too cheesy Hollywood for me.
cinema/ teathrical (or someting) ending makes it to be a scary movie. Alternate ending makes it to a movie you don't think about after. Self I've been think about the cinema ending for days now...
Cinema = scary (to be a ghost stort)
Alternate = happy (drama-queen:P)
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