

2021·Documentary·1h 34m
7.1
★



A deep dive into the making of the Paranormal Activity films with first time ever interviews with cast and crew, never-before-seen footage from the movies, and a preview of the seventh installment in the franchise.
Directed by Joe Bandelli
behind the scenes
documentary film
found footage horror

IMDB
N/A
Where to Watch



Cast

Lauren Bittner
Self

Oren Peli
Self

Brit Shaw
Self

Katie Featherston
Self

Jason Blum
Self

Akiva Goldsman
Self

Christopher Landon
Self

Micah Sloat
Self

Molly Ephraim
Self

Sprague Grayden
Self

Gabrielle Walsh
Self

Matt Shively
Self
Crew

Rachel Belofsky
Producer

Alexander Taylor
Music
Popular Reviews
8 reviews
Joe Head

Fantastic insight and filled with awesome behind-the-scenes never seen before. I found it really profound that they actually got the directors and actors of all of the movies in for interviews. Well done Paramount.
Fantastic insight and filled with awesome behind-the-scenes never seen before. I found it really profound that they actually got the directors and actors of all of the movies in for interviews. Well done Paramount.
Riley Gentry
7.5★ · 01/24/23

A great documentary on the paranormal activity franchise. That really shows anyone can make a movie. Can accomplish their dreams. So inspiring.6.0 out of 10.
A great documentary on the paranormal activity franchise. That really shows anyone can make a movie. Can accomplish their dreams. So inspiring.6.0 out of 10.
Grilliam
5.0★ · 10/25/22

A pretty solid coverage of the first film, but then it tapers off. It works to offer an explanation to some of the issues that I had (mainly learning that I was right in assuming they never had a story plan at any point which explains why the mythology makes zero sense), but most of the 90 minutes is them patting themselves on the back. We get a very good history of the behind the scenes of the first film, but we get less and less on each subsequent film. It doesn't really feel like a documentary about the series as it does one of those specials the TV Guide channel would do to build hype for whatever project was coming out. This feels like a hype package for Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin. It offers some cool information and I loved seeing a grown up Robbie, but it's a lot of filler. Any time they bring out a "Horror Historian", they lose me and I'm not sure why some of the other interview subjects were even there. I wanted more depth on each movie and I needed more "Making of" and less about what the studio heads were talking about between projects. My biggest issue is that it was one of the same giant problems the Paranormal Activity movies have, awful sound mixing. With the movies, you could at least claim that it's only an issue because they only mixed it for theaters and what I'm watching in my living room wasn't remixed for that setting. Fine, I still think it's shit, but I guess that's valid. This doc was never shown in theaters, it was made for home video, so why do they still have all the interview segments at a low volume and every movie clip twice as loud and the jump scares movie clips three times as loud? You mother fuckers mixed this like this on purpose. I had to watch a damn documentary with my finger on the volume button because you intentionally made movie clips much louder to essentially put jump scares in your documentary. There a some pieces of actual documentary quality work here, but overall it feels like a puff piece to get people excited for the new movie, so they gloss any real issues and remind you that they do little jump scares really well (or at least really often). This isn't a retrospective or an in-depth anything; it's a sanitized ad campaign.
A pretty solid coverage of the first film, but then it tapers off. It works to offer an explanation to some of the issues that I had (mainly learning that I was right in assuming they never had a story plan at any point which explains why the mythology makes zero sense), but most of the 90 minutes is them patting themselves on the back. We get a very good history of the behind the scenes of the first film, but we get less and less on each subsequent film. It doesn't really feel like a documentary about the series as it does one of those specials the TV Guide channel would do to build hype for whatever project was coming out. This feels like a hype package for Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin. It offers some cool information and I loved seeing a grown up Robbie, but it's a lot of filler. Any time they bring out a "Horror Historian", they lose me and I'm not sure why some of the other interview subjects were even there. I wanted more depth on each movie and I needed more "Making of" and less about what the studio heads were talking about between projects. My biggest issue is that it was one of the same giant problems the Paranormal Activity movies have, awful sound mixing. With the movies, you could at least claim that it's only an issue because they only mixed it for theaters and what I'm watching in my living room wasn't remixed for that setting. Fine, I still think it's shit, but I guess that's valid. This doc was never shown in theaters, it was made for home video, so why do they still have all the interview segments at a low volume and every movie clip twice as loud and the jump scares movie clips three times as loud? You mother fuckers mixed this like this on purpose. I had to watch a damn documentary with my finger on the volume button because you intentionally made movie clips much louder to essentially put jump scares in your documentary. There a some pieces of actual documentary quality work here, but overall it feels like a puff piece to get people excited for the new movie, so they gloss any real issues and remind you that they do little jump scares really well (or at least really often). This isn't a retrospective or an in-depth anything; it's a sanitized ad campaign.
Spence
9.0★ · 06/05/22

Over the past few weeks, I’ve grown to love the Paranormal Activity series, so this was such a fun watch.
Worth it for everything I learned about the making of the original movie. Katie Featherston seems so cool!! It’s so funny that she was working at Bucca di Beppo when the first movie came out.
Worth it for everything I learned about the making of the original movie. Katie Featherston seems so cool!! It’s so funny that she was working at Bucca di Beppo when the first movie came out.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve grown to love the Paranormal Activity series, so this was such a fun watch.
Worth it for everything I learned about the making of the original movie. Katie Featherston seems so cool!! It’s so funny that she was working at Bucca di Beppo when the first movie came out.
Worth it for everything I learned about the making of the original movie. Katie Featherston seems so cool!! It’s so funny that she was working at Bucca di Beppo when the first movie came out.
Jayden
6.0★ · 03/22/25
