Review - Undertone
Starring Nina Kiri, Adam DiMarco, Michèle Duquet, Keana Lyn Bastidas. Written and directed by Ian Tuason. Rated R. 93 minutes. In theaters.
The first “Paranormal Activity” screening in Boston was a one-off midnight show downtown at the AMC not-so-affectionally known among film folk as “the shithole.” It was part of an ingenious carny barker campaign to stir up promotion for a low-budget, lo-fi fright flick that Paramount had picked up to try and recreate “The Blair Witch Project” on a studio marketing budget. It worked like gangbusters and screenings across the country sold out well in advance. Since this was in those antediluvian days before assigned seating, two of my friends who don’t mind standing in long lines waited around all evening with the horror faithful while another buddy and I got tanked up watching a Red Sox game at a nearby tavern and joined them a few minutes before showtime.
I’ve spent years misremembering that the Sox shit the bed that night, but looking it up online now I see they actually won 6-2. Whatever the case, I was wiped from an evening of beers and baseball and had a terrible time trying to stay awake through “Paranormal Activity,” which I still think is a pretty boring movie. I do, however, understand why it struck such a nerve at that particular moment. Post-“Blair Witch” and “Bourne,” herky-jerky, shaky-cam mania had overwhelmed nearly every avenue of visual storytelling. We’d gotten so used to our eyeballs being battered by what was then quaintly being called “chaos cinema” that for a movie to make a mass audience simply sit and stare at a still image for an eerie amount of time felt like a shock to the system.
Two guys behind us were having a really hard time with it. I don’t want to get into trouble by describing how these gentlemen were dressed and conducted themselves, so we’ll diplomatically say that they did not seem out of place in that particular neighborhood at that time of the evening. If I’m going to be honest, I can admit I was a little frightened of them, but nowhere near as frightened as they were by the movie. I mean, these dudes were freaking the fuck out. Periodically throughout the picture, we’d hear a baritone, “MAN. NO WAY. MAN,” bellowing throughout the auditorium. I was just starting to drift off to sleep when the big thing happens at the end and one of the guys jumped up and yelled, “FUCK THIS MOVIE!” as he ran straight out of the theater.