Micah Sloat Obituary Doesn't Exist: 'Paranormal' Star Lives!

WARNING! Potential 'Paranormal Activity' spoilers below -- read on at your own risk.

Any remaining doubt that the super-low-budget horror-thriller 'Paranormal Activity' is the new 'Blair Witch Project' pretty much went flying out the window this weekend. Like 'Blair Witch,' which cost $60,000 to make and hauled in $140.5 million domestically, the made-for-$11,000 'Paranormal' is scaring up big bucks at the box office. After earning an impressive $7.7 million in 160 theaters in its first weekend, then grossing an astounding $20.2 million in 760 theaters last weekend, the film scored another $22 million this weekend to cut the mighty 'Saw VI' down to size, claim the No. 1 spot at the box office and raising its overall gross to a scary good $62.5 million.

Also like 'Blair Witch,' moviegoers are leaving 'Paranormal' screenings scared to bone and convinced that the footage they've just seen is real. Case in point: Last week, hundreds of thousands of Internet users were Google-searching for the obituary of the film's male lead, Micah Sloat, who may or may not have met his maker (we're not telling) during the purely fictional events depicted in the movie -- which goes to show that audiences are having a very hard time distinguishing fact from fiction.

Sounds crazy, right? Well, it kind of is. While 'Blair Witch' cultivated and fed off the idea that the film was comprised of real "found footage" of a doomed witch hunt in the Maryland backwoods, 'Paranormal' has never been billed as anything but a work of naturalistic, bone-chilling, scare-the-everliving-crap-out-of-you fiction. But if some moviegoers are bent on believing that the movie is real, it's not hard to see why.

'Paranormal' stars Sloat and fellow acting unknown Katie Featherston as a couple who set up a camera in their bedroom because they believe they're being terrorized by a demonic spirit at night -- and, we're sure this has had no part in confusing moviegoers, their characters just happen to be named Micah and Katie. Adding to the cinema veritas feel are the unaffected and natural performances and, perhaps more importantly, the extremely real-looking footage.

For the record, Sloat, who made his acting debut in the film and until now earned a living as a computer programmer working out of his L.A. abode, is alive, well and, in the wake of 'Paranormal''s insane success, auditioning like crazy. And thanking his lucky stars the movie wasn't relegated to a DVD release. "I was fine with that if that's what had to happen," he recently told Entertainment Weekly, "But I'm really glad it didn't."

Featherston shares the sentiment. "This movie has really just opened up so many doors, and I'm meeting good people and reading scripts and getting auditions that I wouldn't have had otherwise," the Texas-bred 27-year-old told the Hollywood Reporter. Featherston, who studied acting at Southern Methodist University and had one credit (the straight-to-DVD 'Mutation') to her name before 'Paranormal,' recently inked a representation deal with the very reputable APA. And although she'll next appear in her friend's horror flick 'Walking Distance' (still awaiting a release date), she isn't afraid of being labeled a one-trick pony. "I don't have any control over how people will see me. I'm hopefully going to do a wide variety of things. We'll see."

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