Unknown Dimension: The Story of Paranormal Activity

It's always fun to look back at a horror franchise like Paranormal Activity that became a staple for several filmmakers interested in creating content within the found-footage subgenre. Agree that the franchise lost a bunch of its own shine and literally led to a saturation of this subgenre in the years that followed, but it revived the idea of making a movie in a minimalistic setup, featuring unknown faces, and lending it an air of believability. Of course, it all sounds better coming from the horse's mouth, which in this case includes directors, writers, actors, studio executives, and more.

Also, is it REC or Paranormal Activity that entered production first? I believe it was the former, even though the releases (PA at Screamfest '07) were just weeks apart. So, it would have been equally great to see Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza amongst the ones interviewed. I always love listening to filmmakers discuss the processes they went through, and this documentary was no different. I'd say you'll enjoy it a lot more if you've watched all entries in the series!

Lionsgate, please consider making a similar piece for the Saw series. I know there's something called Game Changer: The Legacy of Saw but let's expand it further, maybe?

While Unknown Dimension offers plenty of insight into the making of the Paranormal Activity films (seeing as I'm a huge fan of the series) and some rare behind-the-scenes pictures and videos, it doesn't really deliver much in terms of deleted scenes / unseen footage aside from what comes up in Parts 4 & 5. It opened up a lot of doors and then all of them slammed shut. Not to say that the film is bad, I just expected more footage, specifically scenes that were cut out and used in the trailers, but I think it's as good as it gets. I've haven't seen the latest PA film, but I'm sure that one didn't fare any better than this documentary. That being said, it's worth a watch, but don't expect too much out of it.

This was a decent documentary but it should have had way more of Katie and Micah. They ARE Paranormal Activity. Oren Peli is not. He doesn't come across as very likeable and it's super rude how he refers to Katie and Micah as not "real actors" several times. It's so idiotic and embarrassing for someone to call themselves a director but yet still have the same, simple, small minded view of "the only real actors are the ones in blockbusters" actors are actors. Without them, he wouldn't have had this smash success of movie. He should be thanking and praising them, and that's it.

I only watched the trailer and as they talk about how this style of filming changed the horror film industry like no other movie has..... mmmmm, remember Blaire Witch Project? Hmmmm, just sayin.

I thoroughly enjoy this series of PA, but give credit where credit is deserved... im gonna go watch it now.

After watching the disappointment that was PA: Next Of Kin, I felt like I needed to watch this. I'm glad I did because this was an awesome doc!

Every single person that was interviewed came across as extremely likeable to me. A stand out that I'm actually surprised to be saying is Kathryn Newton. I did not like her in the fourth Paranormal Activity but she seems like such a sweet person in real life and I feel like we would get along.

I also liked seeing a bunch of deleted and alternate scenes, especially for Marked Ones which is my favorite.

I guess that if I had to say one negative thing about this documentary is that it spends the majority of its runtime on the first two and there wasn't a lot of time covering the other movies but I was still interested and intrigued by it.

So fans of this franchise, if you were disappointed in Next Of Kin, this documentary 100 percent makes up for it! High recommend.