Paranormal Activity lived up to the hype. Shot for pennies by first time director Oren Peli and using a cast of three total unknows, it’s completely outdone bloated Hollywood horror franchises by being actually quite scary.
Micah and Katie are a completely normal (even normal looking, a novelty in movies these days) couple living in a nice house in San Diago. The thing is Katie is being haunted by a ‘demon’ – basically a nasty spirit that likes to torment people for fun. Deciding to document the weird happenings, Micah buys a camera and documents the whole spookshow.
Here is your wonderful lazy comparison – it’s Blair Witch in a house. The movie is presented as edited footage of the film Micha shot in the house. Hence a lot of shots from tripods and unintentional shaky hand cam – although not the nausea inducing Cloverfield type.
And it works well because the actors are so natural. The reaction of the characters to the events is wholly believable. Katie becoming increasingly scared and and angry at the happenings, where as Micah wants to take things into his own hands using technology and rationality to confront the nastiness. There are no moments where you question the actions of the characters or scream ‘don’t go in there!’ at the screen, they behave sensibly and normally, which allows you to put yourself in their shoes of the protagonists, and feel some empathy towards them, unlike the despicable future cadavers that populate most horror.
The scares are wonderfully simple. Slamming doors, noises, lights – super low budget, but effective. And he sound design is fantastic too. Deep rumbling noises signal the presence of the ‘demon’ – and in the cinema I saw it, the noises were greeted with screams and yelps – a suefire sign of job well done – when an audience are jumping out of their seat at a bass rumble something has been done right!
Paranormal Activity well deserves its internet hype. A simple, effective and genuinely spooky movie. Go see it and let Hollywood know how good horror movies can be.
5 Comments
I loved this film; i’m glad I went to bed drunk after watching it otherwise there’s no way I would have gone to sleep!
I’ve also heard there are two endings!?
Hmm, I still need convincing that the characters in this are significantly less annoying than that stupid bint in the Blair Witch project. She died about 2 hours too late, in my opinion. Can you tell me they are different? Does the girl do that stupid hysterical snot bubble thing? Are they properly developed people, and not stupid snivveling prep school kids?
And enquiring mind may have a passing interest.
managed o check it out last night-very Blair Witch but well done – cat-in-cupboard scares on a grand scale.
Naaa…they are just normal people. No throwing maps in the river.
Not much develpment of the characters, but y’know, it’s a movie about a demon shot of camcorder!…not much time for freudian introspection!
There were a bunch of endings – check out wikpedia!