[Paranormal Activity]
Plot:A couple who move into a new house, come to find out it is haunted by a demonic spirit. They then begin to document the hauntings using a video camera.

Cast:Amber Armstrong, Katie Featherston, Mark Fredrichs, Randy McDowell, Tim Piper, Micah Sloat.

My Thoughts:It Works.

Review:"Paranormal Activity" is the latest real-time, video-camera horror film where rather than having a movie be filmed with a director, crew, etc, events unfold through the lens of a handheld camera, ala "The Blairwitch Project". The only difference between "Paranormal Activity" and "Blairwitch Project" though, is that "Paranormal Activity" was actually scary. The movie follows a couple named Katie and Micah.

Katie has been shadowed and tailed by a ghost ever since she was a kid. Now that her and Micah have moved into a new house, the ghost, spirit, or whatever it is, has returned. And it apparently wants Katie. The movie works because it's simple and effective in everything that it does pretty much. There's no fancy effects, or big stars, or anything that you'd usually expect from a mainstream horror movie like blood, gore, and extreme violence. The film takes a simple scenario like a young suburban couple being haunted by what we'll call an "entity", and milks it for all that it's worth.

But the right mood, the right amount of suspense, and the right directing make the movie very powerful. The film has no musical score, no jingles, or anything. It's pretty much like if you were to invite some friends over, and just roll your video camera or home camera for a few days in a row, documenting stuff. The film basically has Micah documenting the entity that is haunting him and his girlfriend, and the human drama comes from how differently both Micah and Katie approach the situation.

Katie wants the entity to go away, and tries to find any way to make that possible. Like calling over a paranormal expert, and looking into a demonologist. At the same time, she also makes sure not to disrespect or antagonize the ghost. Micah though, is the polar opposite of Katie. He looks at the entity as something to be filmed, documented, and gawked at. He doesn't really take it seriously beyond it being something that's there to give him some entertaining nights and some good footage.

But because the movie works in the usual "Night 1", "Night 2", format as it's documenting the haunting, and because the movie works in levels, the characters go from simply being hassled and slightly inconvenienced by the entity, to being literally terrified, frightened, and terrorized by it. As the haunting becomes more powerful, more confrontational, and more insidious and sinister, the couple become more frightened, and soon go from the happy couple they were at the beginning of the movie, to a broken duo who are scared for their lives and can barely hold themselves, or their relationship together.

As the haunting causes a major rift between the couple, a rift which the entity seeks to capitalize on for it's own benefits. The movie really has some simple but really powerful scenes which make it a true supernatural terror movie. This isn't the mainstream ghost movies that we're used to seeing where cgi spectres are floating around, attempting to scare the audience. This movie uses simplistic behaviors, and goes back to the filmmaking basics of startling the viewer with sounds, sights, and a high creep factor.

But banging things together to make noises isn't going to scare anyone. However, this movie creates a tone, a feel, a mood where it can implement the loud noises and ghostly sounds and movements to a point where they are effective and give you a chill or two. Timing is everything in "Paranormal Activity", and the picture has it's timing on many scenes down pat. Any film can be disturbing and unsettling if it delivers the scares and patterned fright scenes at the right places at the right time.

And this movie does all of those things, and the emotions are heightened in the movie by it's two stars who really make you believe they are scared to death of wht is occuring in their home. The film, which relies on mostly silence before it strikes with a noise or two at the right time, right on cue, out-does and out-performs many of the previous sueprnatural horror films that major studios have put out in the last 3 years or so.

The films ending works really well within the context of previous events, and provokes many different emotions, as it comes off as unsettling and sad at the same time. "Paranormal Activity" is true supernatural horror, and goes to show that despite all the tricks, bells, and whistles that Hollywood throws at us in it's movies these days, all you really need is the right director, situation, timing, and actors to make a good indie horror film.

Positives:Great timing on many of the scare moments, the directing style creates an ominous and insidious tone and feel to the movie, good acting by the movies two stars, a great ending, and some very effective terror scenes.

Negatives:Nothing major.

Overall:Four out of four stars.





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