Premieres for big blockbusters usually take place in cinemas with names like ODEON, CINEWORLD, GRAUMAN’S or BOGNOR REGIS CINEMASCOPE but it seems that the makers of Paranormal Activity are positively itching to associate their horrifying, overdone claptrap with Channel 5′s flagship horrifying, overdone claptrap.

And, as such, the premiere of Paranormal Activity III took place in front of a star-studded audience inside the Big Brother compound proving once and for all that crossover episodes are never as realistic as you hope.

It had been expected that Channel 5 would take the opportunity of having a scary film playing in the compound to systematically murder all of the housemates and celebrities who were assembled inside and the world (100 people whose remotes were broken) watched on with bated breath, waiting for the axe-murderer to be released into the house.

Unfortunately the reality was much less interesting (much like Big Brother, in fact). In fact no actual celebrities turned up to the event, leaving the organisers to sift through the dregs of the Z-List. People who were willing to coo about how good the inevitably terrible film was in order to get £50 from the poor bastards doing PR for yet another shark-jumping horror sequel.

On that subject, we did make the slightly erroneous claim that the premiere was ‘star-studded’ but perhaps a ‘diamanté vajazzled’ audience would be a more accurate term. Well-known Jordan lookalike Katie Price (the one with the tits that she hates us mentioning), Dane Bowers (of ‘sexing Katie Price’ fame), Ironik (the least ironic man alive) and Michelle Heaton (nope, no idea) were among the great washed-up to enter the compound in the pursuit of enough money to buy a loaf of bread and some crack.

Of course, it’s yet another premiere that hecklerspray wasn’t invited to despite us finally meeting the criteria that many of our commenters lay down for us. “What have you ever achieved?” We would argue that we’ve achieved more than Dane Bowers and yet here we are picking the mould off the bottom of our tea cups while he has an awkward conversation with Katie Price about male ejaculate over some plastic nachos.

We can’t win.

The third instalment of the horror franchise is set 18 years before the first film, and is directed by the people who made Catfish, a film that is almost as awful as Paranormal Activity III is bound to be.

It’s a battle of the paranormal this week as we take a look at the two new DVD apparitions that have been released; the enormously popular Paranormal Activity and the enormously unknown Paranormal Entity.

Hey, do you like The Blair Witch Project? Now just imagine that film, but set in a house. There – you now have Paranormal Activity and Paranormal Entity. Both involve people grabbing their own cameras and recording the night time habits of pesky poltergeists.

Many looked on enviously at Paranormal Activity; with a central premise so simple, bold and darn brilliant, it turned out to be one of the best horror films in some time. Some of those green-faced auteurs clearly work for The Aslyum – the ‘mockbuster’ company whose illustrious back catalogue has appealed to many the ignoramus. Who can not forget such classics as The Da Vinci Treasure or Transmorphers: Fall of Man? Yet, with Paranormal Entity, this may genuinely be the first time that one of their productions cost more than the original that they are ripping-off, paying homage to, ripping-off.

Activity has couple Katie and Micah take a camera into the bedroom to see what type of night time activity seems to be keeping them awake (see the inevitable porn version, Sexual Activity here). It’s a slow-burner, but the ample tension really does make you squirm in your seat, making the scares more affective.

Like the Blair Witch before it, it really does leave your imagination to do all of the scary work. When the camera lingers in the bedroom at night, you’ll find yourself leaning forward curious as to shadows in the distance, while equally being truly terrified about what is about to occur.

Entity on the other hand has a brother, sister and their mother, set-up cameras all over their house trying to catch a glimpse at whatever is going bump in the night. It’s less subtle, and by less subtle we mean they just scream very loudly a lot. A LOT. It also contains an gratuitous amount of nudity from the lead female.

It actually becomes quite an embarrassing experience, with little tension and the use of load noises relied on too much. The use of multiple cameras here is actually a detriment, proving to be far less affective than the one camera in Activity. The dialogue is pretty woeful, which is another weird result, considering this film would have had a script and a paid cast, unlike Activity. You’re not sure who is more ashamed, the person who mistakenly bought this title or the actors participating.

It’s hard to further delve into the story without giving too much away, but the naturalistic style from Activity is incredibly impressive for a first-time director and likewise from a cast who improvise most of the dialogue. This is a film that will keep you hooked all the way until its shock finale (a climax written by Mr. Spielberg).

Entity is an empty shell of Activity. It contains many of the same ingredients, and some of the atmosphere and scenes featured are still tense. But it feels more like an amateur attempt at replicating something that was distinct for its amateur feel in the first place.

Comparing the two films is like putting Coca-Cola up against Tesco Value. You know it’s basically the same thing and it sort of tastes the same, but Value has an annoying habit of screaming all the fucking time.

‘Spray Rating:

Paranormal Activity: 4/5

Paranormal Entity: 2/5

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The number one movie at the weekend box office contains terrifying footage of a freakish undead figure.

No, not This Is It. That comes out on Wednesday. We’re talking about Paranormal Activity - the film that was made for $11,000, is widely referred to as ‘the scariest film ever made’ and has gradually been climbing the weekend box office chart as word of mouth about it grew.

Best of all, Paranormal Activity has beaten the latest Saw movie at the weekend box office, too. So here’s hoping that a new, incrementally rubbisher, Paranormal Activity movie gets released every year to help us forget how good the first one was, too! Hooray!

SPOILER ALERT: Paranormal Activity probably isn’t the scariest film ever made. But it’s probably one of the best-marketed, which is why it’s number one at the weekend box office. There have been internet campaigns to get Paranormal Activity a wide release, rumours that Steven Spielberg thought his copy was haunted, leaked internet videos of audiences screaming for their lives, breathless blog reviews, all adding up to make a quite unexpected torrent of hype.

And, admit it, if you haven’t seen Paranormal Activity, you want to. No? The lead actress has got quite big boobs. Oh, now you want to go and see it. You people are disgusting. Here’s the US weekend box office top five…

1 - Paranormal Activity (Speaking of which, what’s the inevitable porno remake of Paranormal Activity going to be called? So far, we’ve only got ParaWHOREmal Activity, Paranormal SPANKtivity and PARROT-ANAL SCAT-GIVE-IT-TO-ME. Do help out if you can) $22,000,000

2 – Saw VI (Whereby Jigsaw, realising that he’s literally run out of inventive ways to kill people, just listlessly slaps a man on the forehead with one of his shoes for 90 minutes) $14,800,000

3 – Where The Wild Things Are (SPOILER ALERT! The wild things are either in the boy’s imagination or on an island or something) $14,400,000

4 – Law Abiding Citizen (A bit like Saw, really, except it’s got Gerard Butler and Jamie Foxx in it, so we’re even less likely to watch it) $12,7000,000

5 - Couples Retreat (OK, we’re sorry for whatever it is we’ve done. Just stop this being in the weekend box office. Please) $11,100,000

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Today’s edition of the weekend box office countdown is brought to you with a side helping of tremendous bitterness.

You see, the number one movie at the US weekend box office this week is Where The Wild Things Are – one of the films that we’ve been most excited about this year. And yet we can’t see it until almost Christmas. Because it’s not being released over here until December. Stupid Britain.

So no Where The Wild Things Are spoilers please. Especially no spoilers about the temperature of the soup at the end of the film. We mean it.

So Where The Wild Things Are is top of the weekend box office this week. And that’s definitely a good thing. Because it has once and for all proved that children’s movies can be slightly dark and ambiguous and leftfield, and still be commercially successful. So here’s looking forward to that Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs remake where the entire second act involves Andy Samburg having a confused existential meltdown and despairingly shouting the word “WHY?” at the palm of his hands over and over again in a rainstorm for 45 minutes.

Here’s the weekend box office top five…

1 – Where The Wild Things Are (Gee, now Spike Jonze has turned Where The Wild Things Are into such a weekend box office success, maybe we’ll see more arthouse directors take on children’s films like this. Personally we can’t wait for Vincent Gallo to adapt The Very Hungry Caterpillar, but only because he’ll probably make it about blowjobs) $32,470,000

2 - Law Abiding Citizen (So we have to wait until December to see Where The Wild Things Are, but Law Abiding Citizen is released here a full month earlier? Thanks a lot, God. You bastard) $21,250,000

3 - Paranormal Activity (When Steven Spielberg watched Paranormal Activity, he became so convinced that his DVD was haunted that he’d only carry it around if it was tied up inside a binbag. In other news, Steven Spielberg is a twunt) $20,163,000

4 - Couples Retreat (Just two exclamation marks stop this film’s title from being a fairly accurate review for any married people who are planning to go and see it) $17,949,000

5 - The Stepfather (Locke from Lost was in the original version of The Stepfather, you know. That’s the only thing we know about it. No joke here, sorry) $12,300,000

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Awesome or Off-Putting is a weekly delve into cryptozoology, ufology, aliens, medical marvels, scientific wonders, secret societies, government conspiracies, cults, ghosts, EVPs, myths, ancient artifacts, religion, strange facts, odd sightings or just the plain unexplainable.

On the one hand you’ve got the Bermuda Triangle – a place renowned the world over for swallowing up WWII flying squadrons of one sort or the other, and never spitting them back out. On the other hand you have the Bennington Triangle - a similar place that will steal away entire populations – one person at a time.

At least that’s what it’s history seems to suggest.

To serve as a brief intro – here’s how Wikipedia sums up the Bennington Triangle:

“The Bennington Triangle is the colloquial term for an area of southwestern Vermont surrounding Glastenbury Mountain which is said by some to be a “window” area for paranormal phenomena.”

Like we said – the Vermont triangle is kind of like it’s Bermudan counterpart in that it is the home of several mysterious disappearances. When referred to in this paranormal light it seems most people cling to a specific disappearance-riddled time period for the cause of this great alarm. Most incidents happened from 1945 – 1950, and although some of them sound like they could just be sad tales of a teenage runaway, others are bona fide perplexing.

And what’s more – legend has it the place has an Indian curse on it or something. UnsolvedMysteries.com can give a tad more specifics on that:

“The Native Americans avoided the area completely, using it only for a burial ground, for they believed the land to be cursed, because all four winds met there. Too, there were legends of a mysteriously enchanted stone, said to literally swallow anything that steps on it. Whatever the cause, no one can deny that people have vanished within the boundaries of the Triangle, and only one has ever been found again.”

Well lets not be too hasty, Indian curse, because one person was seen again – dead. Her name was Frieda Langer - she disappeared and was missing for seven months. That sounds more sad than mysterious until her decomposed body one day turned up in a field that had already been meticulously searched multiple times in a vain effort to find her.

The only victim with her own Wikipedia page is Paula Jean Welden. She was a college student who headed out for a hike alone, and was seen by lots of people en-route – and then she disappeared. A reward was offered, her classmates launched tons of searches and her picture was printed in newspapers the nation-over – but to no avail. She was just gone.

Now we know what you’re thinking – both of those cases are sad, but not overly paranormal, right? Luckily we have this strange one to tide you over until next week. It’s also from UnsolvedMysteries.com:

“Three years to the day after Paula Welden’s disappearance, James E. Tetford vanished in circumstances that defy the laws of physics. Tetford boarded a bus in nearby St. Albans after visiting relatives, intending to return to the Bennington Soldier’s Home where he lived. His presence on the bus was confirmed at the stop before Bennington city, but he was not on the bus when it reached the following stop, Bennington Soldier’s Home! None of the passengers, including the driver, had any idea what happened to him. He literally vanished!”

Those aren’t the only three cases mind you, just three commonly cited ones. And if all of this undeniable mystery terrifies you to the point that you’re thinking about blotting Vermont off of all your globes, maps and cell phone plans – you’re sweating it too much. The strangeness seems to have died out in 1950.

Still – where was everybody going? We can’t help but compare it all to the Cumpstons - the elderly couple we told you about a few years back who were snoozing nicely in their vacation hotel room when a gaping, black vortex opened up in the floor and tried to suck them into a different dimension. Oh that’s right, you read that right.

If you are interested in reading more on the Bennington disappearances, might we suggest you do so here. If you’re still spooked, you should maybe comfort yourself by only walking places while firmly tethered to something of a solid or permanent nature.

Like a house, or your wife.

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