Rotten Tomatoes Reviews of Paranormal Activity

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/paranormal_activity/

Like the Saw movies, the original Paranormal Activity scored higher with critics and audiences than the sequel. It received an 82% from critics and a 52% from audiences.

Rotten Tomatoes Reviews of Saw

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/saw/

Out of all the Saw movies, the original was given the highest rating from both audiences and critics. Critics gave it a 48%, while audiences gave it 86%.

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The topic we want to focus on is horror films. Specifically, our sources will be two horror movies that symbolize the two categories or horror, psychological thriller and gore. While we may change our examples, we thought Paranormal Activity would be a good representation of the thriller while the Saw movies would represent the gore.

In researching these two movies, we will read what has been written about them from critics and scholars such as reviews and analyses. We will also look at precursor films throughout recent history that might have inspired these two examples. Some other aspects we will investigate from a historical perspective are the special effects, plot lines or themes, and audience reaction. For instance, what was scary then but might not be scary now? How has technology like special
effects, makeup, costuming, ect influenced the horror movie over time? What does society deem scary? Why might this be? We hope to answer these questions by analyzing these two horror movies.

For research, we will use magazine articles and reviews written about both of these movies. We will study the development of scary movies in recent history and give examples. For example, looking at why movies like The Blair Witch Project and The Exorcist were so influencial on pop culture. We’ll hopefully be able to dig up some studies on society and horror movies explaining what people’s fascination with fear is all about. We will also do some research on how the technology behind movies has made horror movies even more scary.