Film Review – Area 51

After experiencing distribution rejection around Hollywood, 2007’s “Paranormal Activity” finally found a home with Paramount Pictures. Electing to experiment with a word-of-mouth publicity campaign, the studio carefully expanded the feature into theaters during the 2009 Halloween season, creating a low-budget, slow-burn blockbuster out of next to nothing, transforming director Oren Peli into the next big thing. “Area 51” is his long-awaited follow-up to “Paranormal Activity,” though its road to the big screen has been bumpy. Shot in 2009, the film is finally seeing the light of day, finally offering fans a chance to catch what Peli has been up to for the last six years. Turns out, he’s been fine-tuning a clunker, with “Area 51” a shameless rehash of the found-footage formula that gifted him a helming career. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com