Paranormal Activity

I just saw this tonight and I'm positive I won't have any trouble sleeping. I find it hard to believe that there was so many people positively terrified after seeing this movie. It wasn't a bad movie, but it wasn't scary. There was a certain amount of suspense, I suppose, but I kept watching in hopes that something really frightening would happen. I think the actor and actress who played Micha and Katie were excellent. The characters were well developed. At a certain point, Micha was aggravating the hell out of me. I understood his motives for certain behaviors, but still, there were times I just wanted to smack him. The ending was interesting and not really expected. I just didn't think it was scary. This movie comes off more of a psychological thriller than a horror movie. Too be honest, I can't even remember the last horror movie that really frightened me. Anyway, I don't think I'd recommend the the price of a movie ticket to see this, but it's worth a look when it comes on cable. Maybe it's worth a rental fee. Perhaps I was expecting too much after all the advertisements and (so called?) testimonials to its scariness.

Paranormal Activity is a creepy horror thriller with just the right amount of suspense from writer/director Oren Peli whose admirable in making this movie that doesn't rely on cheap scares and CGI effects to entertain the audience. I actually preferred this one over the Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield because for the most part there weren't too many shaky camera movements. Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat are effective as the two leads giving believable performances as their characters. The suspense build up was good which doesn't quite pay off but isn't exactly a failure either. The sounds they came up with for the demon or ghost terrorizing the two leads were very effective and well paced throughout the film. It definitely helped add to the creep factor and the special effects are equally impressive for a 15,000 dollar budget. I think the demon or evil entity is seen only twice briefly as a sinister shadow proving that sometimes the things we can't really see can be far more effective than the ones we can. I enjoyed the fact that instead of relying on CGI and cheap thrills writer/director Oren Peli chose to use more practical effects like the sounds of footsteps, growls, a door closing shut, lights going on and off, and loud bangs to scare the audience. I wasn't very scared watching this but it definitely creeps you out. I suggest you go in not knowing too much about the movie otherwise any spoilers might ruin the experience for you. Overall Paranormal Activity was better than I thought it would be and it's worth watching. The ending is a little predictable but the good outweighs the bad. This film might not be up there with The Shining but its certainly no Shutter or The Grudge to name a few that weren't the greatest at least to me. So if you're in the mood for a suspenseful horror thriller than Paranormal Activity is the movie for you.

Paranormal Activity (R, 1:29) — Fantasy: Supernatural, bargain basement, original

"Significance" is one of several dimensions I use to categorize SF&F films. It refers to the amount of resources — writing, acting, sets, costumes, effects, promotion, etc. — thrown into any particular movie, and I drop things into 4 pigeonholes: biggie, 2nd string, 3rd string, and bargain basement.

Earlier this week I put The Age of Stupid into the last of these (movies that could have been made in somebody's basement), but Paranormal Activity is even basementier. In fact, compared to its siblings, The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield, it may be the basementiest feature film ever released. You could make 10 of these for what Transformers probably blew on latex alone.

But that brings us to the "bargain" part. Dollar for dollar, you get about a zillion times more entertainment out of Paranormal Activity than you do out of even good blockbusters like Iron Man, let alone such overblown, overfrenetic, overloud crap as Transformers.

The movie is set entirely in a single house and features only 2 actors, both nonentities, aside from fleeting appearances by a couple of equally unknown supporting actors. It's all filmed with a consumer video camera, and much of the film is devoted to what that camera, mounted on a tripod in the young couple's bedroom, captures on its ultra-low-light setting as they sleep each night away for 2 weeks in late 2006.

As we learn in the opening sequence, it's a pretty expensive camera, and Katie Featherston (playing a character of the same name) is fretting over the cost, but her boyfriend, Micah Sloat (ditto), assures her that he makes that much money in a single morning. It develops that she's an English-lit student and he's a day trader.

Of more interest is why they acquired this geeky gizmo. Katie's been haunted by strange apparitions at least since she was 8 years old, and at the beginning Micah is humoring her by indulging his penchant for guy toys with a view toward capturing some of her more recent paranormal visitations on audio and video. He's pretty skeptical, but soon enuf weird poltergeistic effects start showing up on tape, just tiny little things, but inexplicable, and gradually he dials down the scoffing and (honest, well earned) chuckles and starts thinking this is "cool" (and, we are left to infer, possibly profitable). Katie, meanwhile, gets increasingly jittery and frightened. Neither is sleeping well, and they start snapping at each other, followed by regrets and reassurances.

The dialog and performances are absolutely, totally, 100% realistic. Katie and Micah behave and talk exactly as you would expect of any happy young couple. Nothing is forced or artificial. The film completely avoids all horror-movie clichés. No cats jump at you out of the dark. Every time they flip a switch, the lights reliably come on. There are none of those cheap tricks where you see a character all alone in a wide-angle shot, then cut to a close-up as a hand appears out of nowhere from behind. In fact, almost all the shots are long, fixed- camera, wide-angle perspectives, and you can see exactly what's going on at all times (including the time stamp in the lower right corner).

All of which make this the kind of movie that I'm always hoping for — an original story, well told, effective, using believable characters and, at least in this case, not needing a huge budget to get the job done.

Since I saw it the same day as Pandorum (3), with its seizure-inducing stroboscopic credits, I must also say a good word about the closing credits for Paranormal Activity: 3 minutes of total black screen. True to the producers' conceit, they maintain the illusion of documentarihood to the very end.

A couple decide to document their nights while they sleep, after they hear strange noises that they believe to be a haunting.

I respect this film, for the fact that it was shot for less than 20,000, had absolutely no marketing campaign and has become a huge success based on word of mouth and the audience demanding to see it. If only other studios would follow suit and listen to people demanding to see movies they want to see, maybe there wouldn't be so much crap out there.

Paranormal Activity is shot like Cloverfield, Blair Witch Project, REC, Cannibal Holocaust, etc. If any of those films gave you motion sickness, you might want to skip this one. Half the film is shot while they sleep, so the film is on a tri-pod, the other half is them walking around with it. So if you've never been a fan of those films, skip this one. Second, the film is not as scary as people make it out to be. Instead, it is one creepy and suspenseful film, that seeing in a theatre, only heightened my enjoyment of it.

The audience I went with, all had a collective "Oh My God". I could hear it every time something creepy happened. You could literally feel everyone in the theatre holding their breath every time they went to sleep. Again, if you are the type of person who wants to watch a film and not hear a peep out of anyone else, skip this film.

Now the film itself, shot in one week, small (very small) budget and every penny of it went towards the special effects. The special effects are what sell the film, if you don't buy them, the film will not creep you out. They looked real and impressive enough to push the film into a successful goal, which is to scare people. If you are already afraid of the dark, this film will not help you. Every creek, thump, noise you hear in your house will now have you thinking twice.

Less is more, The Blair Witch Project uses this, as does Paranormal Activity. The two leads, are haunted by a demon, one we never see, only hear. Whenever you go into a horror film, as a kid you would close your eyes in fear. Big mistake, because it's the ears you need to be covering. The sound is what makes you jump, hear nothing, fear nothing. The sound design behind this film is what is scary people, accompanied by the visuals (memorable scenes with the powder and bed sheets).

As the film progresses, the haunting gets worse. I don't want to give anything away, and I urge you to not watch the trailer. I watched the trailer and was waiting for those things to happen, it took away from the general fear. Not knowing what to expect will make this film that much better, that much creepier and that much more entertaining. I didn't expect it to be as funny as it was either, the lead male had some comic relief dialogue, the ease the tension.

The couple are believable, the hand held camera angle works here and the fear will set in. I applaud Paranormal Activity, for not only becoming an unheard of success, but for being one of the creepiest films I've ever seen.

Bravo.

Have not commented on anything in a long time. But after reading all the overly positive "scariest movie of all time" and overly negative "two hours of my life I'll never get back (hour and a half actually)", I had to comment. I heard about this in Entertainment Weekly and was waiting patiently for it to come out in wide distribution. All in all, it's a good movie for what it is. A low budget horror movie using the faux documentary premise. Compared to The Blair Witch Project, where you couldn't see a damn thing to be scared of, and Cloverfield, which just made me nauseous from the jerking camera, this film at least has steady camera work most of the time. If you are a die hard horror movie fan, will this movie terrify you? Probably not, except on a psychological level possibly. The notion of a demon haunting a person as opposed to a haunted house, while nothing truly original in the sense it hasn't been done elsewhere, is still not seen to much in horror (except in possession films), least these days in the days of Saw and Hostel and other crap. There are a few startling moments in the film. They are comparable to a friend sneaking up on you from behind and shaking you. But honestly, that's what I want from a horror movie. To be in suspense and have something shock me and get my heart pumping for a few. I can't remember the last film I saw to do that so at least Paranormal Acivity got my blood flowing a couple times. But mostly its disturbing. Some of the night scenes would be slightly shocking, others would just be creepy to watch. But in each something different happens. In terms of acting, nothing spectacular but hardly as terrible as some are whining about. And while the film suffers from all other faux documentary films with the "'WHY ARE YOU STILL FILMING? TURN THE CAMERA OFF!' 'I WOULD BUT THEN THERE WOULDN'T BE A MOVIE TO SHOW.'" moments, there are actually times when the boyfriend gets yelled at to turn off the camera and does so. And his character is shown from the beginning to be stubborn, frat boyish, and egotistical. So, while his stupidity starts to wear on you, its a slightly more plausible reason for the continual filming than say Blair Witch Projects "THE CAMERA IS ALL I HAVE LEFT!!!" moments. To sum up, is this the scariest film of all time? No. But it is without a doubt the scariest film to be shown in the mainstream theater in the last few years. Its more terrifying then the endless remakes and sequels we have been plagued with. One thing I hope for with all the hype is that horror fans want more genuine shock moments than over the top gore.