Review: A Thrilling PARANORMAL ACTIVITY

The stage adaptation of “Paranormal Activity,” now in a pre-Broadway engagement at the Emerson Colonial Theatre through July 30, is a sharp blend of humor and horror. If you like to be laughing one minute and gripping the arms of your seat – or maybe your companion – the next, then this terrific new thriller is the theatrical brew for you.

Inspired by the same-named film series “Paranormal Activity,” which first tingled the spines of moviegoers in 2007, this stage version had its world premiere at Leeds Playhouse in 2024 before transferring to London’s West End in 2025. Prior to Boston, the American production has played Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco. It is scheduled to begin previews on Broadway August 14, prior to its official opening on September 15 at the August Wilson Theatre.

Unlike so many film-to-stage adaptations, this “Paranormal Activity” – written by Levi Holloway, whose thriller “Grey House” had a briefer-than-planned run at Broadway’s Lyceum Theatre in 2023 – opts for a new story rather than repeating the plot of any of the films in the series. Here, married couple James (Travis A. Knight) and Lou (Cher Álvarez) have relocated from Chicago to London to escape their past. They’re eager for a new beginning in the U.K., but they soon discover that “places aren’t haunted, people are.” As this is a new story, I won’t reveal too many plot points except to say some will have you twisting and turning with the hair on the back of your neck standing up.

Horror has long been a popular movie genre – including some great ones like “The Exorcist,” “Jaws,” “The Omen,” “The Shining,” “Poltergeist,” and “Get Out” – but there have been fewer memorable horror shows, onstage at least, with notable exceptions like 1978’s “Deathtrap,” which had a memorable pre-Broadway tryout at Boston’s Wilbur Theatre during the Blizzard of ’78 before a four-year New York run that earned it its ranking as one of the most successful thrillers in Broadway history. Stage versions of “Carrie,” in 1988, and “American Psycho,” in 2016, famously flopped.

Director Felix Barrett, the founder and artistic director of Punchdrunk, a British theater company known for creating the long-running immersive show “Sleep No More,” has assembled a cast of four very talented actors led by Álvarez, whose adeptness at subtly signaling her character’s truth is a marvel to behold, and Knight, whose charm is abundant. Shannon Cochran is convincing as a radio spiritualist who makes a house call to advise James and Lou, while Eva Kaminsky, a last-minute replacement for Andrea Syglowski, is chilling as a mother you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy.

There is plenty to be dazzled by in the production’s design elements, from Chris Fisher’s stunningly well executed illusions to the first-rate lighting, sound, and video and projection design by Anna Watson, Gareth Fry, and Luke Halls, respectively.

But enough cannot be said in praise of the scenic design by Fly Davis, who also designed the costumes. A two-story set where action happens simultaneously upstairs and downstairs is a rare thing these days seen in the original 1994 Broadway production of “Sunset Boulevard,” and in plays including 2016’s “The Humans,” which subsequently played Boston’s Shubert Theatre on its national tour, and the 2024 Broadway production of “The Hills of California.” To see a two-story set, richly detailed at that, on the stage of a Boston theater in 2026 is something to behold.

With “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” a blockbuster that features even more awe-inspiring illusions by Fisher and sound design by Fry, “Stranger Things: The First Shadow,” enjoying a healthy Broadway run, and “Little Shop of Horrors” in its seventh year of a high-profile off-Broadway revival, horror and thrillers may have found a new home on stage. Billed as a modern ghost story – and with a packed audience at the show’s recent press night hanging on its every word and reveling in its impressively executed special effects – “Paranormal Activity” may just have what it takes to join that welcome renaissance.

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