How I Got Radicalized
When I Realized I Couldn’t Afford to Live in a Haunted House
‘Paranormal Activity’ turns demonic possession into a curse for upwardly mobile homeowners
Welcome to “How I Got Radicalized,” a new series at GEN that tells a story about a cultural moment — a TV show, commercial, character, song, book, musical, etc. — that made you drastically rethink how society works. Here’s how you can pitch us.
It was the Summer of Covid and my partner and I decided the timing was perfect to watch the Paranormal Activity series, binging all five movies in quick succession to escape the dark reality of our day-to-day. For us, the Outside was full of the unseen danger of infection, rendering our little studio apartment a sanctuary of safety and maskless breathing, a tiny ship in the stormy sea of the world. Turning inward, toward domestic horror as an act of emotional scab-picking to test how safe we felt, made sense. An urge came over both of us to find a movie that was scary but not too scary — or too real. (Zombies, pandemics, dystopias, and fascist-adjacent horror were all off the table.) Found-footage horror was ideal.
Paranormal Activity (2007) follows a young couple, Katie and Micah, in the suburbs of San Diego, terrorized by an unseen demon…
