Some movies are just meant to be seen at a movie theater; the same effect is not achieved at home. "Jurassic Park" was this way. I suspect that "Zombieland" will be the same way. "Paranormal Activity" is definitely one of these movies; at my theater viewing, there were perhaps ten other patrons, and I think that is the IDEAL amount of people that you'll want to see this movie with. In a packed house, I think people would laugh after some of the spine-tingling jump scares (which are refreshingly free of LOUD NOISES sound stingers), and thus take you out of the movie."Paranormal Activity" is not an original film, and its knowledge of ghosts and spirituality can be culled from any half-hearted internet search. But that doesn't take away this movie's power to creep you the fuck out; its best moments are merely waiting in agonizing silence, watching the film's ever-present cameras, not quite sure where to look on the screen for the ungodly thing about to make its presence felt.
Told in the "cinema verite" style made famous by "The Blair Witch Project," the movie is the story of Katie (Katie Featherston) and Micah (Micah Sloat), a young couple living together in San Diego, California. Katie has had recurring run-ins with a ghostly entity since the age of eight. Micah, instead of being scared by the phenomena, thinks that it is cool, attempting to capture everything on videotape for posterity.
Katie and Micah invite a psychic to their house early in the film to discuss the case with them. And while I chided the movie for its lack of originality on the ghost front, it does get the terminology right with its setup. For the uninitiated, there are two main types of ghosts - earthbound spirits, which were human at one point, and demons, malevolent entities that exist only to cause pain. And if there's one thing I've learned from "A Haunting" viewings on television, demons aren't meant to be fucked with.
That's the setup, but the true beauty of "Paranormal Activity" is its execution. The ghost becomes more violent and daring, appearing in the daytime as the movie wears on. And in the nighttime bedroom scenes that periodically appear, and "Night #3" and "Night #7" tick by on the screen text, we get scenes of absolute gut-wrenching terror without a single shred of blood being shed. And that, my friends, is pretty impressive. Folks, if you want a movie that can get under your skin, look no further, and on the forty-five minute drive back home yours truly was mightily creeped out.
Lastly, I can't help but compare this movie - an independently produced, $15,000 budgeted film originally released at film festivals in 2007 - to "Saw VI," the bloated, WAY past its prime clusterfuck of a motion picture that this movie beat at the Halloween box office and thus shocked the world. The American people made the right choice, and this movie proves that American horror audiences are starved for originality in this day and age of sequels and remakes. Joe Bob says check this one out.
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