Paranormal Activity (2009)

Paranormal Results

Synopsis: A couple decides to video the strange noises and activities while they sleep only to discover more than a settling house.

Rated: R

Genre: Horror

Run Time: 86 minutes

Starring: Katie Featherston, Micah Sloat

Directed By: Oren Peli

Theater Release: October 16, 2009

 

Oh man! Where do I start?  First time director Oren Peli just showed the world what an independent film maker can and should do with a limited budget.  I’ve seen many scary/horror movies in my time. In fact I make an effort to ask, read, look up and find what people think of as the scariest movies and buy them to see if it’s true.  More times than not the movies you see are bloody and gory, with some having a few jumpy moments but not very “scary” in the end.  I define a scary movie as one that after you leave the theater and go home, your still a bit twitchy thinking about what you’ve seen.  Truly scary movies will have you staring at the darkened closet thinking you see shapes while you lie in bed.  “Paranormal Activity” is a movie that not only made the first night a sleepless one, but so were the next two or three.  It’s that good. (It was a towel hanging in the closet by the way)

The pacing of this movie is what does it.  It slowly builds and builds to the point where every time the young couple start going to sleep at night you will already be nervous wondering what is going to happen.  The storyline is good at setting up this pace although it may be a little lacking in some of the details.  Basically it’s about a young girl and her boyfriend dealing with a haunting by some entity.  They decide to try and catch some of the “Paranormal Activity” on camera to find out what strange things are actually happening while they sleep.  Things start off tame, strange noises, bumps in the night and slowly build to a shocking climax. 

The thought of a home movie “film” will make most people think of “The Blair Witch Project” but this movie was filmed in a way that the comparison doesn’t exactly work.  There is no running around with a shaky cam, mostly the camera is fixed on a tri-pod and the shot is steady.  It works much better than some other “hand camera” films because of that.  It is just you the viewer seeing what’s happening while this couple is asleep.  The film plays on the feeling of being vulnerable while you’re asleep and it takes the noises from everyday things that everyone has experienced and twists it to make them frightening.  There is no blood, no gore just a mind game that I can honestly say scared me more than any movie I’ve seen since I was twelve years old.

I suggest everyone see this movie at least once.  It’s just fun to be scared and “Paranormal Activity” does it in the simplest ways.  This is a movie that the kids seeing it today will always remember it as the movie that freaked them out in their youth. (The way I remember “IT” from when I was twelve)  It would be even truer if they had been able to pull off a PG-13 rating by not using the F-word a couple times too many, leaving a larger audience of kids scared of the dark.  Just know that the adults watching this movie will also be knocked down to the level of feeling like there’s a monster under the bed.  The lessons I learned from this movie: Don’t date crazy people, don’t play with Ouija boards, and always sleep with the lights already on.  Well, two out of three isn’t bad…

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