Photo credit: Johan Persson
“Hold your nerve” is the tagline for Paranormal Activity: A New Story Live on Stage, and there are a couple of startling theatrical moments which make that a tricky task, as evidenced by the smothered shrieks and nervous laughter echoing around The Alexandra on press night. As a whole, though, the stage show doesn't quite reach the terrifying heights of the movie it's named after.
The first Paranormal Activity movie was released in 2007, having been shot in seven days by director Oren Peli, on a budget of $15,000. It went on to earn almost $200 million, and spawned six sequels, as well as this play by Levi Holloway, which debuted in Leeds in 2024, and has since visited both Broadway and the West End.
Audiences don't need to have seen the movie to enjoy the stage show, as the plot and characters are new, and it shares only the concept of a single-location setting, and the idea that ghosts don't haunt places, they haunt people. Surprisingly, given the recent trend for using extensive video effects in theatre, the play doesn't make any use of the movie's aesthetic of home surveillance and found footage; this is all live.
James Bye and Hannah Sinclair Robinson star as James and Lou, a young married couple who have recently relocated from Chicago to London, in the hope that they can leave their troubles behind them. Their troubles, of course, have followed. Bye and Robinson are both likeable and believable in what is almost a two-hander, barring a couple of impactful scenes featuring Jo Castleton as a paranormal investigator, and Caroline Faber as James’ overbearing mother.
James and Lou's home is created by designer Fly Davis’ attractive two-storey set, which captures the small details of domesticity and leaves plenty of dark areas for things to go bump in the night. Unfortunatel,y the partitions of the dollhouse-style rooms upstairs, as well as the bulky refrigerator downstairs, can make some scenes and effects difficult to see from the sides of the theatre. The lighting, meanwhile, from Anna Watson, is deeply atmospheric, even if the nighttime scenes can be hard to make out. Scene changes are done in pitch black, but the extended breaks end up diluting the tension.
For horror fans, one of the most important aspects of the show will be the illusions, and without giving too much away, we can say that designer Chris Fisher does great work here, giving us both slow, creeping tricks and sudden, shocking appearances and disappearances. There are several jump scares that rely on loud noises too, and Gareth Fry’s sound design is powerful enough to shock anyone, though it's a shame that a lot of the dialogue is muffled.
Anyone looking for wall-to-wall horror won't find it here; the play starts as a slow burn, with Holloway's script leaning into the effect that Lou's haunting and James' skepticism are having on the marriage. Director Felix Barrett lets the sinister atmosphere build over the first act, then gives us a few more scares in the second, as the danger ramps up and secrets are revealed. The ending is impressively shocking, though whether it quite ties in with the majority of the plot and provides a satisfying conclusion for the character arcs is debatable.
There aren't many opportunities to see horror on stage, and fans of the supernatural will find plenty to like in this well-acted production, even if some areas could be improved.
A genuinely creepy night out.
*** Three stars
Reviewed by: Laura Lott