Dread Central Raises its Pinky High for Some Demonic Tea with the Cast and Crew from the Paranormal Activity Films
Steve Barton
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On a bright and sunny Friday the 13th, Dread Central was invited alongside several other journalists to have “Tea with Toby”- the demon behind all the terrifying shenanigans in the Paranormal Activity series- as well as a few of his co-stars and the mastermind behind it all, writer/director/producer Oren Peli.
During tea we had the opportunity to chat with Peli, stars Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat (whom we first meet during the original film) as well as Christopher Smith, Chloe Csengery and Jessica Tyler Brown from Paranormal Activity 3.
Over the course of a few hours, we heard from everyone in attendance on pretty much anything and everything fans of the Paranormal Activity franchise would want to know. Peli chatted with us about what to expect on the upcoming Blu-ray release of Paranormal Activity 3, the mythology of the highly popular series, the massive amount of support the films get from Paramount and why, no matter what, the Paranormal Activity movies will always strive to stay true to their fans.
We also heard from the cast members, who shared with us their thoughts on their involvement with the Paranormal franchise, what deleted scenes they would have liked to see make the cut, doing their own stunts and how the youngest stars of PA 3 – Csengery and Brown – managed to stay brave while making one of last year’s scariest movies.
Sadly, Toby ended up being a little on the shy side around us journalists so we missed out on hearing from the demon himself. Check out some of the highlights from our tea party below, and don’t forget there are two ways you can enjoy the Paranormal Activity films this month: either check out Paranormal Activity: The Chronology, which is now available via iTunes, etc., and cuts together the entire trilogy in chronological order; or check out Paranormal Activity 3 (Blu-ray and DVD review here) independent from its predecessors when it hits home video shelves everywhere on January 24th.
Oren Peli on the mythology of Paranormal Activity: Well, usually we work on them one at a time, but as we were doing the second one, we saw that there was a mythology emerging so we figured let’s kind of build on that and plant some seeds. Then, depending on whichever direction we decide to go for a third one- if we were lucky to get to do a third one- we have options to go forward in time, go backward in time or really go any direction we wanted to; and all of those choices allowed us to expand or explore the mythology more.
Peli on PA 3 directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman: Henry and Ariel were absolutely fantastic to work with on this one. They were incredible with the cast and crew and kept a very smooth atmosphere on set, and I think everyone felt like it really was a “family” making the movie.
Peli on Paramount’s support for the Paranormal films: Paramount is always extremely involved with these movies and incredibly supportive of us and this franchise. Anything we need, they’ve always stepped up. They work with us when it’s time to choose directors, when we’re meeting with producers and writers, and there have been times where we’re all there in a meeting, and a lot of higher ups at Paramount would be right there with us debating for hours over what the motivation of the demon is. They’re that passionate about these films, and they want to make sure we get it right and that we don’t disappoint the fans.
Peli on what deleted scenes made the home release of PA 3: A lot of the stuff that ended up on the cutting room floor that was in the trailers will be included on the Blu-Ray, and I think fans will really enjoy seeing it for the first time.
Peli’s thoughts on Paranormal Activity: The Chronology: I think it’s cool. If it’s your first time watching the movies, I think it’s better to watch them the way they were released, but for the fans of the franchise, I think this presents a really cool, new way to experience these movies and in an unusual way, too. I think there’s a lot to gain from both ways of watching the trilogy, but I think it’s pretty cool that there’s now both options.
Peli discussing the future of the Paranormal Activity franchise: For me personally, I consider every single movie as the one we’re going to concentrate on so I never think beyond the present. I never even thought there’d be a part two- each time it’s all about coming up with a great story for that movie in particular, making sure it serves our mythology, and if fans want another film, we’ll think about that when the time is right. But I just think it’s greedy to ever think about anything beyond the movie you’re currently working on.
Peli’s official word on Paranormal Activity 4: We have some ideas, but I can’t say anything. At all. Sorry. Usually we just don’t say anything about anything until we’re ready to say something.
Katie Featherston on the loyal PA fanbase: The whole thing has been unbelievable. On a daily basis I still have people who come up to me to tell me how much they love these movies, and it never gets old; I never become blasé about it either because I think Micah and I are just so grateful for the people who were excited about the movie from the beginning. It’s overwhelming how amazing it has been to be a part of all of this.
Featherston on her experiences with the original Paranormal Activity and the success of the sequels: I was just shocked there was a sequel. I still sit here even now remembering me sitting across from these two guys (Peli and Sloat) at California Pizza Kitchen, brainstorming over lunch and trying to come up with stuff for the first one. To have as much success as we’ve had and to be sitting here celebrating the third round is still mind-blowing. I haven’t even really come to terms with it yet.
The whole experience with the first movie was the greatest test of patience I think any one of us has ever been put through, but I always trusted in Oren. Oren had several offers he turned down because he had a gut feeling about this and we were a team. Throughout the entire process, I never once doubted Oren- even when there were murmurings of remaking the movie and recasting it, too, he stood by our movie and I knew that when it would ‘happen’ for us, it would happen exactly the way it was always meant to.
Featherston on future projects and PA 4: I did a few episodes of Oren’s new show, “The River”, for ABC, which premieres February 7th, and there’s an independent movie I did called Flutter that I’ll be filming in the next few months. But I don’t know anything about PA 4… but I am stoked for it.
Micah Sloat dishes on his deleted scenes: For me personally, there were a lot of improvised songs I did during both Paranormal one and two that never made it into either final cut that I would love to eventually see get released somehow. I thought they were a lot of fun and I think everyone else cracked up during them so that would be fun to see.
Sloat discusses missing out on the Paranormal Activity premiere: They always make me sneak out the back door, especially after the first movie was just about to come out since I was technically ‘dead’ so I couldn’t even go to the premiere. I remember watching it from across the street, hiding behind a mailbox and watching everything.
Christopher Smith (‘Dennis’ in PA3) discusses Paranormal Activity 3 deleted scenes and the evolving script process: We did a lot of scenes around the dinner table where we just talked around the table and those never made it in, but they were really fun scenes to shoot. They really helped us all relax and come together as a ‘family’ so maybe a few of those will pop up on the DVD or Blu-ray.
They gave us a script at the beginning but they told us that even though this was the script, it was probably going to change. And boy did it change- probably week to week even- so things got taken away, scenes got switched up, and by the end of it we had a rainbow script because every new change meant a new color of paper went into the full script. It was constantly evolving also because we were encouraged to improvise, too, because in many cases they wanted to see if something would spark right there ‘in the moment.’
We shot a lot of scenes where something special would happen and you’d just sit back and say, ‘Man, I really hope that makes the cut.’ But by the end of it, you just knew it was futile to really want anything in the picture because we had no idea what kind of story we had told during those four months of shooting.
Smith explains the intricacy of the ‘kitchen gag’ in PA 3:They nailed it and in one take. I don’t know how they pulled it off, but I do know they rehearsed exactly where Lauren was going to go and stand over and over. It was really exciting because everyone was waiting to see if it would work; what you saw was a huge set-up and they spent like a day just setting it up. It was really on Lauren to make it all work because the stunt was going to happen and whatever was going to happen, all of the other elements needed to be right on the money.
Jessica Tyler Brown (Young Kristi) on her onscreen family from PA 3: Once you get involved with everyone and start to get comfortable, then you start to feel like a real family. And I felt like we were a real family.
Tyler Brown talks about doing her own stunts: It was scary and fun at the same time. I almost fell actually, but there were a lot of mattresses stacked up, like The Princess and the Pea, underneath me and then I got to jump down two feet. It was fun and scary- like I said. Henry and Ariel said if I ever felt uncomfortable that I should just say ‘cut’ and they’d cut. I never had to say ‘cut’ though because I knew I was safe.
Chloe Csengery (Young Katie) on being scared: I’ve seen parts of our movie but I haven’t seen the last 15 minutes though. It was never scary on set because we always had our parents close by and the directors would always tell us what was going to happen during the scene beforehand. They were the best directors; they always helped us, especially when we got scared.
Csengery discusses her favorite deleted scene and preparing to play Katie: One thing I did do that didn’t make it into the movie was where I was singing a Whitney Houston song because my character was very outgoing and stuff so I thought that helped show how outgoing Katie was.
I wasn’t allowed to see the two other movies so my mom kind of told me how Katie was. I watched a few clips online on YouTube and that’s how I prepared for when I went into the audition.
Follow Paranormal Activity on Twitter (@TweetYourScream) for more upcoming announcements, and as always keep an eye on the official Paranormal Activity website!
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