Oren Peli Quotes

For a found-footage-style movie, there’s a definite advantage in using unknowns, because it helps sell the illusion that it’s real. A known actor would get in the way of the suspension of disbelief.

I don’t know if I would say that I’m specifically a history buff. I do find a lot of things fascinating, especially anything that’s bizarre or mysterious and unknown and we don’t have all the answers for.

I pay a lot of attention to box office because I understand it. TV ratings? I don’t know how to interpret them, since I’m new to TV, so I’m just going to wait for somebody to tell me.

Not knowing the thing that’s chasing you is a lot scarier than seeing it right in front of you.

The most pressure I felt was for the first ‘Paranormal Activity,’ because when it was released, whether it was going to be a hit or not, I knew it was going to be a life-altering event for me.

I’m pretty content with what I have, but the one thing that I don’t have is something like the iPod – but PC-based. I think that would be cool.

The thing I find really scary about ghosts and demons is that you don’t really know what they are or where they are. They’re not very well understood. You don’t know what they want from you. So it’s the kind of thing you don’t even know how to defend yourself against. Anything that’s unknown and mysterious is very scary.

‘Paranormal Activity’ was a unique project in that I made it basically on my own, with a little help, and I had no exposure to the filmmaking world when I made it.

I’ve always had better luck learning things on my own. And I really love the challenge of doing it yourself and kind of being alone against the system.

The less people know about ‘Paranormal Activity,’ the more they enjoy it.

I do not buy CDs any more; I usually stream Internet radio. For movies, I hardly every buy any DVDS. I have a DVR, so just record things off HBO, Showtime and so on.

Even if you look at the ‘Paranormal Activity’ movies, at the end of the movie things get really crazy and nutty, but they all start in a very mundane situation that people can relate to, and that’s also to some degree what we tried to do in ‘Chernobyl Diaries.’

I think the traditional explanation is that demons just find someone, they pick on them and try to break down their spirit so they can… take control of their bodies. Why exactly? I don’t know.

I’ve never owned an Apple product. I like the fact that PCs are open architecture and not locked down like Apple products. I feel that Macs are also unjustifiably overpriced.

The thing that scares me is a place like the Amazon – which is the size of the continental U.S. and mostly unexplored and has a different ecosystem, there are so many things in there that can kill you.

I believe that whenever I want to learn something I can learn it much better and faster by myself if I’m motivated to learn it as opposed to kind of doing it in more a standard, institutionalized way.

Don’t know if I’m a nerd – I’m more of a geek.

I’ve been having a lot of fun exploring different aspects of filmmaking, like writing and producing. There isn’t a specific plan and I usually don’t know what’s going to be the next thing I do.

One of the advantages of this found footage format is that you can have deliberately badly composed frames. Here we can put a camera in the weirdest angle and it kind of throws you off. You never know what you are supposed to be paying attention to. It’s deliberate chaos.

I’m just considering myself extremely lucky. All I wanted is to have ‘Paranormal Activity’ be released and become successful. And everything that’s happened since then is just an enormous bonus.