Review: Paranormal Activity

When Kate suspects she is being haunted, her boyfriend, Micah, decided he is going to document events and prove to her it is just her imagination. As the nights go on, the evidence becomes overwhelmingly apparent that they are in fact being haunted. They look to experts with no luck and continue living their lives, but the activity becomes harder and harder to ignore, and eventually puts their lives in danger.

This movie was part of an internet petition to get this into theaters. They needed at least a million, and got that (plus more I think) based purely on trailer footage. Whenever a inexpensive film is hesitantly backed by a studio, I usually put faith in the fact the project is good. And thankfully so.

Kate and Micah (they use their real names) are not award winning actors. For all intents and purposes, they are still amateurs. A lot of the negative criticism has come under their acting skill, usually done in the most disrespectful way possible. I unfortunately have to agree. In the beginning their small talk felt forced, and they were lacking a lot of chemistry as a couple. Yet they were still engaging enough for me to care what happens to them, as well as being incredibly disarming. Plus once they get into the thick of incidents, their reactions seem mostly authentic. They perform the bare minimum in my opinion, so for the most part is works.

The camera visions at night are definitely the star of this movie anyway. A few thuds here, a flickering light there, all nonthreatening individually, but overtime, the idea of coincidence becomes meaningless. The scares come from a really realistic place. Creepy things happen and bring you to the edge of your seats. There is no attempt to jump at the screen and startle you with loud noises or gross you out with crazy over-the-top gore. The filmmakers invest a lot of time in building tension and a sense of dread, and that is better than any masked slasher that the audience actually roots for over the teen stereotypes they happen to be chasing down at any given moment. This movie is popular for the same reason the Ghost Hunter shows are, a dependency on little things that add up to a big haunting allowing the improbable to seem possible.

I should say that there is one attempt to jump at the screen and startle you, and that is in the theatrical ending. The alternative ending is much more appropriate in my opinion.

7/10 Amateurish? Sure. Horrible? No way. Over-hyped? Possible, but I wouldn't let seeing this depend on that characteristic.