ParanormalActivity

Looking for something good and geeky to watch? Check out this week's notable sci-fi DVD & Blu-ray releases:

9 (DVD & Blu-ray)
I never got around to watching this dark animated feature produced by Tim Burton and Night Watch director Timur Bekmambetov. It features a great voice cast – Martin Landau, Elijah Wood, Crispin Glover, John C. Reilly, Christopher Plummer, Jennifer Connelly – and a suitable-looking post-apocalyptic setting. Sadly, 2009 wasn't the year of the tiny stitch people, since everyone else seemed to ignore 9's theatrical run too. Judging by the sophisticated visuals in the trailer, this looks like a good Blu-ray rental.

Paranormal Activity (DVD & Blu-ray)
Director Oren Peli's freaky no-budget fright fest gets two DVD releases, a standard edition and a "Limited Collector's Edition" featuring an unrated version of the flick and an "alternative ending" (or is it the film's original ending?), plus a goofy film cell and T-shirt. The Blu-ray also features both cuts of the film.

Princess of Mars (DVD)
Peter warned you about this Asylum cash-grab presumably based on Edgar Rice Burroughs's John Carter of Mars series back in August. If you can't wait until 2012 for Pixar's version of the story, Traci Lords and Antonio Sabato Jr. stand ready to punish you for your impatience in this Z-grade straight-to-DVD affair.

Jennifer's Body (DVD & Blu-ray)
Writer Diablo Cody and director Karyn Kusama attempted to make a smart and schlocky horror movie about the strange personal relationship between two very different girls. Critics balked and audiences stayed away, but Jennifer's Body has a few things going for it. Amanda Seyfried turns in a nice performance, Megan Fox looks good in, well, almost anything, especially a cheerleading outfit, and Adam Brody is a hoot as an arrogant and murderous pop singer.

Israeli-born writer/director Oren Peli will be following up the surprise hit Paranormal Activity with an extraterrestrial spook job, Area 51, and according to a report by Variety, it looks like Paramount Pictures has picked up the U.S. distribution rights. In case you've been living under a rock for the past few months, Paranormal Activity is the little horror flick that could, mustering $106 million at the box office (thus far) from a Blair Witch Project-worthy $11,000 budget. Online support (mostly via Twitter) helped push the film into wide release. It was kind of a big deal.

For Peli's alien-themed follow-up, he had an exponential increase in budget to a whopping...$5 million. Principal photography has already wrapped about three weeks ago, so we can assume a release sometime in 2010, logically around September/October, when Paramount started seriously rolling out Paranormal Activity. Variety tells us the film uses the same "found footage" construct in Paranormal Activity, focusing on three teens who stumble into the famed Area 51 at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada.

I haven't gotten around to seeing Paranormal Activity so I can't really weigh in on Peli as a writer or director, but regardless, it's heartening to see some original genre properties emerging, especially low-budget ones. The "found footage" thing is a little disappointing though. With a Paranormal Activity sequel in the works, you have to wonder if Peli might be overdoing this faux documentary shtick.

What is "Sci-Fi on the Screen" you ask? Why it's television and movies, of course! Every Monday, we'll be looking back at the previous week to see how sci-fi is faring on TV and in theaters. This will include a look back at the ratings of science fiction shows on television, as well as a glimpse of sci-fi films at the box office.

Box Office (10/23-10/25)

This weekend, the supernatural Paranormal Activity did the incredibly unlikely, climbing up the box office rankings to secure its first week at number one ... in its fifth week of release. Paranormal's $22 million shattered the dreams of Saw VI, which opened at less than half its previous three installments, but still earned enough for second place.

That dramatic battle atop the charts may have hurt the release of Japanese science fiction icon Astro Boy. The animated adaptation opened with an anemic $7 million dollars; a fraction of its $65 million budget.

Is there anyone out there who hates Paranormal Activity, Oren Peli's incredibly effective dive into "found footage" filmmaking? Judging by the fact that it sold out every single one of its midnight showings in 33 different cities last weekend, I think it's safe to say that people are loving the idea of being terrified Blair Witch style without having to commit to the false idea that what they're seeing is reportedly real footage. Sure, Peli's film made for roughly $15,000 is a genuinely frightening breath of fresh air, but what I admire most about is its refusal, from a marketing and narrative standpoint, to try and sucker viewers into thinking it is anything but a damn good haunted house simulation.

So how does one follow up faux found footage from a haunted house? With faux found footage from Area 51, of course. Variety is reporting that two groups of investors have locked down $5,000,000 for Oren Peli to make a film that tells, "the story of three teens whose curiosity leads them to the notorious "Area 51" part of Nellis Air Force Base in the Nevada desert."