By ANDREA SUBISSATI
Direct from sold-out runs in Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, DC and San Francisco, PARANORMAL ACTIVITY makes its Canadian premiere at the CAA Ed Mirvish Theatre in Toronto from June 9 through July 5, 2026. Based on Oren Peli’s 2007 found-footage hit, the show follows young couple James (Patrick Heusinger) and Louise (Melissa James) as they settle into their new London flat, hoping to escape the terrors that plagued Lou since her childhood. Alas, they soon discover that places aren’t haunted… people are. The evil has followed them across the pond, and they must work together to confront their own demons to survive.
RUE MORGUE caught the opening night performance in a theatre packed with fright fans eager to experience the chills of this frightening new theatrical event, and caught up with director Felix Barrett to discuss the challenge of adapting the beloved film to the stage.
Tell me about your own experience with the PARANORMAL ACTIVITY franchise. Were you a fan of the films?
So the thing that was a defining memory for me – and when [this project] came up, I signed on about six seconds after I heard – was I remember in the UK, when it was being advertised, it was on TV and in the cinema, just showing not one frame of the movie, but audience response. And because I think my entire career just always put the audience at the centre of the action, I was like, oh my gosh, to have the balls, to have the sort of confidence to just show audience responses in night vision; imagine doing that in a theatre. I loved the first film. I actually haven’t seen any of the other sequels, and I sort of didn’t want to start, to influence myself. So I stayed with the original, and that’s it. But I will [watch the rest]. I’m now very curious about the [upcoming] remake.
Is there a particular aspect of the film that you really wanted to shine through in your show?
Felix Barrett
Yeah, the bit that got me – I saw it in the cinema and loved it – was just the fact it was so plausible, and that was brilliant. It wasn’t about [movie] stars. It was just about the fact that it was cheap and made on a shoestring budget, and that, in the best possible way, meant that you could really empathise with them. Like, oh my gosh, that really could be me! That was the bit we wanted to shine through. Even though Levi [Holloway, writer] and I decided to ditch the found footage [format] in the first few minutes, we knew that had to be the touchstone. Just imagine if it were real. You can’t call the police. The Ghostbusters don’t exist. What do you do? Exorcists are quite hard to get hold of. What do you do in that situation? So that was what we loved.
You say you ditched the found footage format in the first five minutes: is that to say that there were five minutes of consideration of how you could possibly adapt that to stage?
In this sort of theatrical ecology at the moment, there’s quite a big trend for live cameras on stage. And there are big shows; Broadway, the West End are doing it. So I knew if we went that way, it would be jumping on a bandwagon. And I was excited about trying to do something that was horror that really felt like it hadn’t been seen before on stage. We initially thought about them still doing the activity, still capturing the content around the house, but you just didn’t really see it, or you saw it on a smaller screen. But then, when we were in rehearsals, we cut that as well, because it was just cleaner. If you show the audience everything, then they’re very passive. But if you don’t show them enough, then they have to use their imagination to colour in [the holes], and that’s where the true horror lies.
Is your show intended for fans of the film or just theatre-goers in general?
Oh my gosh! I would hope both. I think if you’re into horror, we do adhere to certain facets of the franchise. And I feel it speaks to the power that lies within the first [film]. But I think what’s exciting is we tried to build a show that, even if you’re not into horror, you can see enough of yourself within it, so that it cuts through. And I think we’ve got such an incredible creative team, top of their game. But the thing that warms the cockles of my heart is when people say, “I didn’t think it would be for me, but I came to see it anyway, and I loved it.” That’s all you want to hear when you’re making work.
Tell me about the use of comedy in the show. It’s quite funny in some parts.
Well, that’s Levi’s amazing writing. I think it wasn’t set out to be that way, but he’s got such an amazing sort of dry Chicago humour. And you need that respite from the shocks; you need to be able to laugh it off. We talked very early on about rug pulls and setting up something and then doing the opposite, and the humour sort of takes the steam out of the tension, and it hits double time. But really, that’s a credit to our all-powerful writer.
Concerning your previous work with Sleep No More, which was so innovative, how did your experience with that inform the way you tackled PARANORMAL ACTIVITY?
I think with all my work, I’ve always tried to break the rules of theatre and think about what’s been done before. If someone’s already gone down that path and done it well, why join them? I think I’ve always tried to do things that I certainly haven’t seen before. And initially, that was like working in non-theatrical spaces and being installation-based and adventurous. But actually, it’s so interesting; over the past 20 years of making immersive work, everyone does it now. And all of the danger and thrill and the subversion and deviance of it all is gone. It’s become a parody of itself. So I wanted to come to a theatre and say, how can you give an audience in a theatre something that they haven’t seen before? And how can you break the rules for them? And it’s very different [from Sleep No More] because it’s not about breaking the fourth wall, but it is about trying to adhere to the established rules of what happens in theatres and then go further than [the audience is] expecting. I would think we’re probably one of the loudest shows in the Toronto scene. And certainly, [there’s] the use of sensory deprivation: big blackouts and just really honing in on various senses. That’s stuff that I do, whether it’s in an empty factory or a theatre.
Tell us about the upcoming thriller play you’re working on.
It’s called The Guilty. It’s based on a Danish film that then got an American remake for Netflix during lockdown. It’s a one-man show about a 911 call. It’s about one of those operators who’s having a terrible day and has to save someone from a distance. It’s very still; it’s all on the phone, but it’s very, very high stakes. I’m in that part of the process where we start tech tomorrow. The first preview is not for a week. But in the same way [as PARANORMAL ACTIVITY], it’s like, how does horror work on stage? It’s a similar yet very different question: How does a thriller work?
