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'Paranormal Activity' delivers the fear
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The scariest shot you will ever see.
The slow burn. It's a lost art in most film genres, let alone horror. Right now most horror consists of getting in, killing people quickly and shoving a few sudden appearances by the bad guy in your face. The art of suspenseful horror is one that is steadily fading from practice. This is why, among a plethora of other reasons, Paranormal Activity is one of the best modern horror films ever made. It doesn't coat the screen in blood or try to pounce on you with a sudden violin shriek. No, Paranormal Activity is a slow burn, building up terror over its entire running time until you're actually afraid for the couple the film follows to go to bed each night -- and once you leave the theater you're afraid to go to bed that night.
If you haven't heard of Paranormal Activity it is quite the Cinderella story. After being made for only $11,000 (though it doesn't show it in any way ) the film made the festival rounds winning instant cheers (or more likely screams) and was eventually picked up by Paramount, which was simply planning to do a very limited release in major cities, but due to the film's ever growing popularity the company has now decided to keep it running and add it to more cities.
That's the story behind the film, but it's the story in it that makes it so interesting. The film takes place entirely in a California home inhabited by couple who has recently moved in together. Katie, the female of the couple, has been haunted by something since she was a child, but the hauntings are getting worse. Micah, the male, decides that he will buy a video camera to record them as they sleep and see if they can capture anything. He of course records almost every other part of their life as well.
The film presents itself as home video from a real event that was put together by Paramount, and it adheres to this religiously. The opening is simply a few words of text thanking the police for the cooperation in putting the film out and the movie ends with no credits whatsoever. Of course by the end you're a little too creeped out to notice much other than the lights coming up. The film is so well paced (except maybe at the end) and put together that you start to wonder if it isn't all real. Both actors perform admirably in roles that must have been immensely challenging to even get into let alone pull off convincingly.
However, most of the film's horror credit must go to first time director Oren Peli who masterfully weaves together their story into one of the scariest things on the screen despite the fact that the creature is never seen, there is no score and the entire film takes place in a perfectly normal suburban house. Peli basically splits the film up between two parts: daytime and nighttime. Nighttime consists of the camera being placed on a tripod and watching the couple sleep and daytime consists of everything else. Nighttime is when the film gets really scary, and yet it's only about a fourth of the move. It doesn't matter though, every time the film cuts to the couple sleeping your heart instantly starts jumping and your eyes start frantically scanning the screen for anything.
Then it happens. A shadow moved or there's a thump. Small things that could happen in any house, making them all the more scary. The two sleepers might not have even noticed it, but you did and the girl next to you screaming did, and every night it gets a bit worse, a bit scarier and bit harder to pretend like you aren't freaked out every time the film cuts to the shot of the couple sleeping in bed. There's hardly anything that jumps out at you. There's barely much action other than tossing and turning, but you're scared the entire time that something is going to happen, and that's true fear and great horror. When a movie can do nothing and still be scary, you know it's doing something right.
As I said before, Paranormal Activity is an immensely slow burn. The daytime scenes are spent watching the couple attempt to understand what is going on and slowly crumble as their sleep is terrorized. It's almost normalcy for most of the movie. It's like a safety buffer between the parts where your palms start sweating and your heart picks up again. This is horror done not for the sake of gore and death, but to actually create fear. Not just fear inside the theater, fear after you leave and as you're going to bed. This isn't a horror film, it's a a lesson in how to build fear.
This is, without a doubt, one of the scariest movies you will ever see.
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