I was having a discussion with a co-worker of mine last week about the docu-horror film Paranormal Activity, strangely enough this conversation was not about the gazillions of dollars this film had made; but the fact that he thought the film to be in fact true, and not a fictional account put to film under the ruse that it was indeed the documentation of a real incident. This brought to mind an article I read several years ago about the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and the fact that to this day people still believe that film is true, simply due the title card before the film stating so. I understand that use of this device: announcing the film is based on true events is indeed a powerful ploy to those people open to suggestion to start to stir the pot if you will. But does there really needs to be a reset switch after the film is over, so people don’t spend the rest of their lives avoiding the great state of Texas due to their overwhelming fear of men in masks made of human flesh wielding chainsaws?
The point I think that made this argument even more ridiculous, was the fact that in our very break area we had a copy of the Entertainment Weekly with both stars of the film on the cover heavily made up and in a mock pose from the film, with an article detailing the actors and their feelings on the overnight success of the film. My co-worker simply stated that because “the film is dedicated to Katie and Micah at the end they have to be dead and the film has to be true.” I can’t argue with that, in our great country where we have to put warning labels on hot coffee to indeed say “hey this coffee is hot, don’t pour it on your face while singing Farmer in the Dell”, do we need warning labels on films saying “yeah, we made this up and badly”? I coined the term for this implied reality, simply because your accepting that a reality implied by a film is recognized by you to be in fact real and living with that world where these things exist.

Thinking this could be just an isolated incident, I ventured to the internet where I found sadly it was not. Yahoo Answers, Forums and websites I found a bunch of naïve and gullible people all asking if Paranormal Activity was indeed true. It’s amazing these people don’t simply Google their own question, and research it instead of simply posting their question online to show generations to come how lazy they truly are. I don’t know if this is some high form of escapism or just plain stupidity, but it worries me a bit that people in our society are that open to suggestion so accepting of what they are told in media that they can simply be programmed to believe almost anything with a simple title card. I do have to say upon checking wikipedia both The Fourth Kind and Paranormal Activity are absent from “List of Films Based on Actual Events” page, thank goodness cooler and smarter heads prevailed.
Playing devils advocate though, it could be some sad person looking for something out of the ordinary, otherworldly thing to believe in, but do you really think it would hit the cinema first, I mean Oprah would be all over that. In some cases where the media has mislead the public, as with the case of the Fourth Kind it’s kind of understandable, but with films like TCM or Last House on the Left(1972)? You really think that if they were true there would have been the only retelling of those harrowing events? Every one of the victim’s families would have sold their story rights and they would keep retelling the same story until Lifetime makes their definitive vision of the events!
I honestly have to say you can’t take any media in our society at face value especially films, even documentaries. Because even if they are indeed based on true events, the vision through the lens is always somewhat skewed and we have to be smart enough to recognize that. They will do what they have to do, to tell a compelling story and part of that is “molding” the truth. No one is going to invest 10 million dollars to tell the story of the summer where your parents split up, you really need some aliens up in that story to get the human interest level up, and a sub plot where your dog is a wacky talking treasure hunter doesn’t hurt either. I would like to say it’s common sense but I would almost say the playing field is equally divided. Maybe these films need warning labels like coffee, maybe we should just not blindly accept everything we see on a screen as fact. I can just imagine that lawsuit now, when someone who spent their entire life avoiding Alaska after watching a film about aliens files a suit, due to the fact; that because of their film they missed out on a great vacation spot. Oh it will happen, trust me it will.