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Review: 'Paranormal Activity'
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Paranormal Activity
For all the hype surrounding Paramount’s little-movie-that-could, Paranormal Activity, expectations are set at a level that could never be reached. It’s the downside of a considerable amount of buzz and positive word-of-mouth. The bar is now set accordingly. For those who have yet to see the film, please do not listen to anymore mentions of this movie until you see it. No trailers, no reviews and, for the love of Pete, don’t use Facebook for you may run into the dread status of “Just saw Paranormal Activity and it…..!”.
Also, if you haven’t seen 1999’s The Blair Witch Project, then don’t.
Still there? Cool.
The legend of Paranormal Activity is well known by now. The film, written and directed by Oren Peli, was made on a budget of only $11,000-$15,000 and was screened on college campuses after it debuted at the Screamfest Film Festival and later at the Slamdance Film Festival. Paramount picked it up for $300,000 after a long and argues process with DreamWorks, was intended to be remade into a larger-scale film, frightened audiences and eventually made millions upon millions of dollars and became the most profitable film for the studio ever, ever. Not bad.
Starring Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat, the film is shot as a home video which adds to the “authenticity” and “realness” of the story. Katie and Micah are engaged and live together in San Diego but Katie’s dealings with a supernatural being are quickly becoming a nuisance for the couple. Micah, who sports a fairly cavalier attitude about Katie’s problem, buys an expensive video camera to record the haunting. The film captures not only the daytime interactions between the couple but is also mounted in the bedroom and records each night’s festivities. As each night passes, the ghostly shenanigans become slightly scarier: from keys that have moved in the kitchen and a giant thud to lights flickering and doors slamming shut. As Katie and Micah investigate the problems, they hire a psychic (Mark Fredrichs) to help get in touch with what kind of specter they may be dealing with. The news isn’t good as the psychic informs them that it may be a demon and demons, if you didn’t know by now, are not to be trifled with.
Micah brushes off the warnings and attempts to communicate with the entity through an Ouija board, as well as routinely mocks the supposed demon. Again, demons rarely like to be insulted, especially by a day-trader.
Paranormal Activity is refreshing, not because it isn’t like the big budget horror movies that cut eye-lids off people and tie a morality tale around it. It also doesn’t bake in an obscene amount of “boo!” scenes or is a reboot of an already existing story. Most importantly, it’s good because the heart of the filmmaker and crew can be seen miles away…or was that their spleen? The dynamics between Featherston and Sloat is palpable and thanks to their chemistry seen through the Handy-Cam, audiences should have no problem pulling for the sympathetic characters. They could easily represent any regular schmo when dealing with this situation. From the measured “I must solve this” bravado of Micah to the teary Katie who has been dealing with these demons her whole life, Paranormal Activity succeeds while delivery palpable suspense. It’s great to see a movie create fright purely through psychosis rather than showing gallons of blood.
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