The $15,000 flick that's a scary-good phenom

Paranormal Activity, a hyper-low-budget haunted-house horror flick from first-time director Oren Peli, has changed filmmaking forever - if you believe the hype.

An impressive, not entirely successful exercise in minimalist filmmaking, the faux-documentary is about a twentysomething couple besieged by a demon.

It has an interesting one-man-with-a-camera gimmick and it delivers some real thrills - without any gore and virtually no violence.

That's no mean feat, considering that Peli shot the film entirely in his own house over seven days - using just a home video camera - for the ludicrous, bargain-basement cost of $15,000.

Ironically, the story behind his film has proven more interesting than the flick itself. If Paranormal is anything, it's a masterpiece of promotion.

The media can't stop talking about the film. It has been dubbed a phenomenon and compared to the 1999 low-budget sleeper hit The Blair Witch Project. (At $100,000 the budget for Blair was substantially higher.)

Stories have recounted with almost mystical awe how Dreamworks boss and mega-director Steven Spielberg was so moved (and frightened) by the film, he helped greenlight a big-budget remake to be directed by Peli. But producers were sufficiently impressed by test screenings, they opted to release the original version instead.

Paramount Pictures began a PR push in September by showing the film in 13 college towns across the country. It invited fans, via eventful.com, to "demand" it be released in their town. Once a million fans voted online for the film, it would get a general release.

By Oct. 3, the film was selling out at 33 locations in 20 markets. On Friday, the film, which had grossed $1.6 mil, was expanded to 44 markets, including Philly. It went on to become the fifth-highest-grossing film over the weekend, making $7.1 mil.

Paramount announced the millionth fan voted online for the film on Saturday, so the film will get a general release across the country on Friday.

The studio's carefully executed viral campaign created the powerful illusion that interest in the film was building entirely on word-of-mouth. (The intense media coverage didn't hurt, either.)

Some fans outside a screening Friday in West Philly said the flick had underground cred.

"It's an indie movie," explained Havertown's Anthony Schrader, 22. "It's had less filtering by Hollywood, which always suger-coats mainstream horror."