Fairly normal horror flick is no Blair Witch
Film
PARANORMAL ACTIVITY
Cert:15
PARANORMAL ACTIVITY has caused quite a hullabaloo in the States where it has taken $150m, having been made for just $15,000. It follows the now-familiar blueprint established by the Blair Witch Project: characters film themselves, scary goings on are subtly suggested, and an online viral marketing campaign – including clips that suggest this might be real rather than staged footage – sends word-of-mouth buzz through the roof.
Of course, it arrives here already an all-conquering blockbuster and on those terms it doesn’t especially stand up. It’s clever, but it’s neither as nerve-wracking nor as scary as the Blair Witch Project or subsequent bigger-budget films like The Others or this year’s Let the Right One In.
Katie and Micah are a wealthy young couple – she’s a student, he’s a day trader – who have some weird stuff going on in their house. Gadgets-mad Micah sets up a film camera in the bedroom to record what happens each night. As time progresses, spooky suggestions of a malevolent presence – loud crashes, moving doors, billowing sheets – get more intense, and seem to have an increasingly wicked intent.
The film is lifted by some smart psychological elements – the eerie events chip away at Micah’s male pride more than they scare him, and reveal the cracks in the couple’s complacent relationship – and the initial instances are suitably unsettling. But the film’s episodic nature denies the build up of tension, and the conclusion is a real disappointment. Timothy Barber
Theatre
NATION
The National Theatre, Olivier
Mark Ravenhill, best known for his cynical, raucous fin de siecle play Shopping and F*cking, proves his versatility afresh with this adaptation of Terry Pratchett’s island adventure. The shift from the decidedly adult to family friendly might be surprising, but the result is splendid in its own way, if chaotic.
The setting is a Pacific island in the 1860s, which has been destroyed by a tsunami. It also happens to have shipwrecked Daphne, a young Victorian girl. On the island, Daphne finds Mau, a boy-man who must find the courage to be the island’s chief, since all other contenders are dead. Daphne and Mau become inseparable, and together they breathe life into the totem-worshipping, ravaged dregs of the island’s society. The idea is that together Mau and Daphne come of age (overseen by a foul-mouthed parrot) as they discard old doctrine to forge a new nation.
There’s some respectable questioning of superstition versus science – Mau becomes enamoured with Daphne’s progressive world and doubts his tribespeople’s belief system of patriarchal gods. But the island has its superstitious power too, as Daphne learns.
The staging is gobsmacking – not only through puppetry (wild pigs and greedy vultures rendered to perfection) but with screens and strings that enable Mau to swim, plunge and row a boat with beautiful realism. Despite its thematic messiness, you’ll be cheering at the end – the charisma and charm of both characters and story can’t fail to delight. Zoe Strimpel
Art
KIENHOLZ: THE HOERENGRACHT
National Gallery
THE LATE American artist Ed Kienholz and his wife Nancy made this walk-through representation of Amsterdam’s red light district in the 1980s. Its dark alleys and disturbing imagery are a jarring presence in the hallowed National Gallery – though it’s not necessarily as incongruous as it may seem. As the exhibition points out, prostitution as a theme in art dates back centuries.
Kienholz’s red light zone (“Hoerengracht” in Dutch) is a nightmarish netherworld. Figures of prostitutes, moulded from life, stare blankly from the windows of their ramshackle garrets, their shop-mannequin faces encased in metal-and-glass frames, exaggerating the inhumanity of their predicament. There are street bollards, bicycles, radios playing, and the whole environment seems to be crying – gluey liquid drips down windows, mirrors and faces. Everything seems filthy. It’s desperately seedy, and makes one think of Hogarth and Victorian prisons. But it’s also like a spectacular stage set, a performance that neither endorses nor condemns the horrors it depicts. TB