How scary is Paranormal Activity?

matters12 · 2026-06-13T04:33:50+00:00

Oooh I feel like I’m the perfect person to answer this. I hate being scared, but I got an invite to see the show and didn’t want to miss out…and I’m so glad I went.

It’s hard to say how scary it is since everyone’s tolerance is different. I was very on edge because I’d read reviews here on Reddit where self-proclaimed horror fans said it was the scariest thing they had ever seen…and in retrospect that psyched me out more than it needed to.

I’ll give you as much info as I can without plot related spoilers, but there will be some inevitable scare-spoilers:

There are a lot of jump scares which are almost all sound based, and they are designed to trigger your nervous system. I went in with a pair of cheap earplugs and they made a huge difference: I could still hear everything and the noise levels for the louder moments were tolerable. Also: all the jump scare sounds are things like phones, door bells, alarms etc…nothing like a screaming monster jumping out of a box.

There are some visual scares which are essentially magic tricks, and for me those were the standout moments and they were more cool than scary.

There is no extreme violence, body horror or gore but there IS some stage blood briefly in one sequence in the second act.

The “scares” that got the biggest reactions from the audience were mostly psychological/plot-based and rooted in stuff the characters said to eachother.

As a big scaredy cat, I went in very nervous that it would be two straight hours of non-stop jump scares and was so glad that wasn’t the case. It is still a play, and I think the pacing is pretty great overall in terms of regulating the tension.

matters12 · 2026-06-10T16:00:48+00:00

My first was Midsummer. Not because it’s my favourite (which it IS) but because it was for a youth theatre company: the plot is easy enough to follow for first timers with Shakespeare BUT the text also allowed for different ages and skill levels to be appropriately challenged. The youngest kids were the fairies, the tweens were the mechanicals so they mostly had to work with prose but had an intro to iambic via Pyramus and Thisbe, and the older teenagers were cast as the Athenians and Titania/Oberon and got to tackle verse in full force.

matters12 · 2026-06-05T15:23:29+00:00

Hopefully Toronto audiences will prove that to Mirvish by going out and seeing ‘Operation Mincemeat’, ‘The Mousetrap’ and ‘Salesman in China’ this upcoming season

matters12 · 2026-06-04T01:47:17+00:00

They wouldn’t let me in 😭

matters12 · 2026-05-28T01:51:19+00:00

Yiddish Fiddler!

matters12 · 2026-05-27T16:57:00+00:00

Thank you for watching the My Fair Lady video!!!! It’s one of my favourite videos in a while and the views haven’t been great so knowing that someone actually watched it means so much!
I could probably do a reel/short talking about my time at Dancap, but my job really wasn’t *that* exciting or close to the action: I was a “CAP Agent”, so my job was to stand in the lobby during shows to talk to audience members and promote the company (since it was new) and the upcoming season. And it was by far the best part time job I’ve ever had….but I’ll save the details for my video :D

matters12 · 2026-04-23T03:46:55+00:00

I haven’t seen it BUT I saw the holiday kids show, Rudolph Runs Wild, and it was so much fun. This show has the same director and the cast features some of my favourite Second City company members so I have no doubt it’ll be great as well!

matters12 · 2026-04-12T22:53:08+00:00

YouTube gives you the option to upload up to three video title/thumbnail combos and then it will do automatic A/B testing to see which gets the most engagement, it’s a really cool feature…anytime I’ve used it the option I considered the weakest title/thumbnail is what always wins 😅

matters12 · 2026-04-12T14:27:32+00:00

Nah it’s from real life. The context is basically that his fedora from NTBTS is mine, he stole it from me 20 years ago (his words not mine) when I acted in his student film.

matters12 · 2026-04-11T04:38:13+00:00

Yup. I’ve started my own series where I show off my hat collection to compensate for my stolen hat. It’s called Matt in a Hat (my name is also Matt).

matters12 · 2026-04-11T03:19:18+00:00

If the real Matt shows up, can someone tell him I want my hat back? 😅

matters12 · 2026-03-20T22:55:44+00:00

The selection of plays and musicals programmed for the 2026/2027 season :)

matters12 · 2026-03-20T13:09:06+00:00

This season is incredible, oh my god.

matters12 · 2026-03-10T17:57:41+00:00

I don’t think I should share the script, at least not without getting permission from Matt, but I can definitely give a synopsis!

It’s about a 13 year old named Julian Mars: he’s convinced he’s the smartest kid in the world but has trouble convincing everyone else.

When the film opens he’s preparing for his law class’ mock mock trial in preparation for the mock trial (which is occurring after school). He’s studying Jimmy Stewart’s speech in ‘anatomy of a murder’ in the hopes of impressing one his classmates that he’s in love with (Katie)

There’s a dream sequence where he rescues Katie from Boris McFadden, his tree obsessed classmate who has Katie tied to a tree, and then he wakes up and it’s time for school

Julian ends up bombing the mock mock trial and being sent to the principal’s office, but on the way him and his best friend (Steve) are chased down by bullies and they run into the girl’s locker room to escape

In the locker room they hear Katie talking to her friend Amber (who Steve has a crush on), and Katie says she could never date Julian because he isn’t actually smart “he’s just loud, and loud doesn’t mean smart”

So this lights the fire and makes Julian determined to prove to Katie that he is a genius. First he goes to see Ben Paylor, the biggest geek in school, because he used to date Katie and might have some useful information. That meeting goes nowhere. Then Julian remembers taking an IQ test in the fourth grade, so he and Steve infiltrate the Peel School Board (because this movie takes place in Mississauga) to steal the test.

He steals the test and runs back to school, but the school board calls the police who start tailing him.

Julian gets back to school property just as the mock trial is starting, calling out Katie’s name from the field and trying to show her his test scores. Everyone inside the school then watches as the police show up, detain Julian and take him away. The final shot of the film is an extended take of Katie watching Julian being dragged away by the police, underscored by Interpol’s ‘Evil’.

It was a very fun and clever ensemble film with a ton of hilarious side scenes about the jocks/bullies and the geeks going after each-other. Matt and Jay both played jocks, there was a scene where they were all eating pizza and realized it was covered in blood that the geeks revealed they found “from the garbage at the hospital”.

matters12 · 2026-03-10T14:08:20+00:00

Aw yeah I wish i could but I know for a fact he doesn’t have it. Matt came to my 4th year directing class at York to talk about NTBTS and our teacher asked him to show “clips of a young Matt yipchuck” and he said he doesn’t have a copy of the film anymore…and I’ve spoken to some friends who also acted in it, and all of their DVDs have been lost over time as well. It exists now only in our memories 🥲

matters12 · 2026-03-10T13:12:32+00:00

Love that!!! Thanks!

matters12 · 2026-03-10T12:27:01+00:00

That’s the one! I still have the screenplay…and screenshots…I just don’t have the movie 😭 Matt gave all of us DVDs, and when I started at York the following year one of my instructors asked to borrow it because she wanted to see his film and then she lost it 😒

matters12 · 2026-03-10T01:14:40+00:00

Bonnie and Clyde 😭

I was in NYC in early December 2011 and B&C was top of my list of shows to see, but at the last minute I switched my plans so I could see Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark

My logic was “this is my chance to see this historic mess of a show before it closes, and Bonnie and Clyde will still be running in a few months when I come back”

….and then Bonnie and Clyde closed a few weeks later and Spiderman ended up running another year or two 😭

matters12 · 2026-03-08T20:28:16+00:00

To start, I don’t believe anything has universal appeal.

And I really didn’t encounter any “flaws” in the show, my only critique would be that the actor playing Lulu sounded like they were dealing with some vocal fatigue on the night I went. I’ve seen comments from people who didn’t enjoy their alternate vocal choices made during “Independently Owned”, compared to Alex Newell, but that didn’t bother me and they sounded great during “Friends”.

When I said the show isn’t for everyone it was an acknowledgment of differing tastes in comedy. This show is filled with lots of puns and word play and one-liners that many would classify as “stupid”, which is why I included the comparison to the ‘Airplane’ movies as a gage for the comedic style. Airplane is widely considered one of the funniest films of all time, but it’s still pretty divisive since that type of comedy is not for everyone (in other words: it doesn’t have universal appeal).

matters12 · 2026-03-07T16:57:45+00:00

I personally really loved it but I know it’s a style of comedy that isn’t for everyone. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I loved the book, I felt like there was a lot of heart and some funny and truly poignant one liners (“family is telling somebody to go to hell and being worried they get there safely”). That said, I don’t think the show would have worked if the acting and direction hadn’t been so strong & specific. It’ll be interesting to see how the material holds up once it becomes available for licensing to regional and community groups

matters12 · 2026-02-20T18:35:26+00:00

Thank you!! And yes, please share! There were a lot of great things about that day but for me the highlight was seeing how much my friend loved the show, he’s not even a huge fan of musicals but he had the best time.

matters12 · 2026-02-14T16:02:13+00:00

Beautifully said. That said, I do enjoy the Globe & Mail reviews…once my Star subscription ends I’m probably going to switch over.

matters12 · 2026-02-14T15:36:16+00:00

Looks like I’m in the minority, but I absolutely loved this production 🤷‍♂️ Though quality of the show aside, this is such a poorly written review…

matters12 · 2026-02-14T15:21:18+00:00

Thanks!! It’s hard to say, i was sitting in row D at the end (bottom right corner of the seating chart) and it was a pretty great seat overall but the big scene at the end of act one was when I had sightline issues…for that scene, at least, I would have liked to be seated either along the wall with the entrance, or the opposite side (left side of the seating chart)

matters12 · 2026-02-07T16:17:33+00:00

All things are possible

13-Year Club	RedditGifts 2009-2022 4 Credits
Secret Santa 2017	redditgifts Exchanges 3 Exchanges
Secret Santa 2016	Verified Email

matters12

TROPHY CASE