Exclusive Interview: Micah Sloat of Paranormal Activity 1 & 2

by: The HORROR Man

He’s dealt with a demon possessed girlfriend, now he has to face The Horror Man!

Micah Sloat  portrays Katie’s boyfriend in both Paranormal Activity and Paranormal Activity 2. When the news came to me that he would be calling me, my head spun around for five minutes, no joke. Paranormal Activity 1 and 2 have something about them that audiences love. They scared the bejesus out of us and we want more. With the recent release of Paranormal Activity 2 fans clamored for bigger scares. They got it! I chatted with Micah about his roles in both films and how they have affected his personal life as well. Check it out.

Horror Man: Paranormal Activity 2 is the highest grossing horror film released in theaters to date. How does this make you feel?

Micah Sloat: “It feels amazing! Paranormal Activity is sort of like my baby. For us it was sort of hard to make a sequel that worked, but we did it and the fans love it. There’s no better feeling in the world.”

Horror Man: How was the Archlight premier in Los Angeles for you?

MS: “It was fantastic. It was great interacting with the fans and meeting everyone. I even signed a guys forehead which was pretty crazy. People were chanting our names, it was a great experience. For the first Paranormal Activity premier at the Archlight, I wasn’t allowed to go or interact with the fans. I actually went anyway and hid behind a mail box. (Laughs) So this time around I was real happy to interact with the fans.”

HM: Were you not allowed to go to the premier because the first film was portrayed as being a true story?

MS: “Exactly.There was a bit of mystic on whether the film was real or not. Not in the way the Blair Witch Project did it. In there case, the film makers were claiming it was real footage. We never made that claim, you could always tell it was a movie but at the same time, the fact that it was documentary style, kind of suspended belief and added to the mystic of it being real anyway. The real difference was people didn’t feel duped.”

HM: Yeah you guys never claimed it was real or gave it that label of “found footage.”

MS: “Yeah exactly.”

HM: Lets go back and talk about the first film for a minute. What were you doing before Paranormal Activity came out?

MS: “I was a computer programmer. I was a php and ajax programmer for CoinNet. Its similar to Ebay. You even see me wearing a CoinNet shirt in the movie. I was doing that and I was a caterer before too. I catered this one party and they had a Kenny G album on repeat for like seven hours. It was so torturous I decided to quit.”

HM: That’s scarier than any demon possession!

MS: (Laughs) “Yeah it was pretty horrible. So I taught myself how to do programing and went from there.”

HM: Did you study acting as a hobby or how did the whole acting deal go for you?

MS: “Well I was always a student of acting. But it was really a hobby until I made it out to L.A.  As far as getting the role for Paranormal Activity, there was a add in Craigslist, anyone could have gotten the part. But I went for the audition and got it.”

HM: So what scares you?

MS: “I think what scares me the most is possession. In dealing with psychotics or monsters, those things are all external. So no matter how creepy the serial killer is you can fight them. But with possessions or demons, there invisible and taking you over from the inside. How do you deal with that? Its just so creepy of a thought.”

HM: In dealing with demon possession, was there any preparation you did for Paranormal Activity 1 and 2? Did you look at actual supposed demon possessions?

MS: “Yeah definitely. It was extremely important to Oren Peli, the director of the first film, to portray what really happens in a haunting scenario. We weren’t making the film for a mass audience, we had a specific niche of horror fans who really know haunting’s and that’s who we targeted. We did a ton of research. From reading books to watching films.  So all the things you see in the Paranormal Activity movies is stuff that’s been reported.”

HM: How has your family taken to you being a star now?

MS: ” Everything has been great and were real thankful. We were super excited at just getting the film on one screen in Hollywood. The fact that the movie was picked up by Dreamworks and Steven Spielberg was behind it and wrote the ending. Then it got distributed and people loved it, I mean there was this title wave of awesome I surfing on and still am.”

HM: Do feel Paranormal Activity 2 is a tighter film than the first? In terms of bigger budget and storytelling?

MS:  “With the first film we didn’t have a template to follow, what worked and what didn’t work, so we had to work on the fly. For Oren it was a year of editing and a lot of re-shoots. It has a real heart and was very original. With the second film we brought all the things that worked and defined what was the Paranormal Activity experience. We had a budget that was like two hundred times more than the original and got to do a lot more scares and ideas.”

HM: Have there been any ramifications with dealing in the subject of demon possession? You know like weird things happening to you or spooky nights.

MS: “To me I feel like I’m protected by my character. If I was to summon demons or use a Ouija board, things wouldn’t be going so well for me. So the character I played dealt with that stuff not me.”

HM: When I was younger I got a movie from my then girlfriend, and I watched it once then put it away and forgot about it. Then all of a sudden I started to sleepwalk. No joke, I would wake up in different parts of the house and not remember how I got there. Mind you, I never slept walked before in my life! Needles to say I got rid of the movie and the problem stopped.

MS: “That’s so creepy! Wow.”

HM: After I watched Paranormal Activity on Blu-Ray it started again. My wife says she found me one night on the couch sitting up looking at the tv but it wasn’t on and it was three in the morning. She walked me back to bed and all I remeber was me waking up as soon as I touched the bed. I had to get rid of the movie as well…sorry.

MS: “That’s crazy dude. Something like that happened to Steven Spielberg when he first viewed Paranormal Activity on DVD. The door to his viewing room locked from the inside and couldn’t be opened. He had to call a locksmith and have it opened for him. He didn’t even want to touch the DVD after that and took the movie back to Dreamworks in a garbage bag.“

HM: Will there be a part three to the Paranormal Activity franchise?

MS: “The movie was left open to the question, what happened to the baby and whats going on. This is a question that has to be answered. It would be disappointing if there was not a third one. There are a lot of loose ends that could be tied up so I’m excited to see whats next.”

HM: For the first film there were three different endings, how many endings are there for part 2?

MS: “We actually tried like fifteen different endings. The problem with the first film was the budget and we couldn’t really expand on the endings the way we wanted to. Thankfully Dreamworks stepped in and we got that extra bang at the end to help the film.”

HM: Well thanks a lot for a fun interview.

MS: “My pleasure man and we’ll have to do it again sometime.”

Big thanks to Micah and his PR rep for setting this up. Now go out and see Paranormal Activity 2!