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| Paranormal Activity |
| Director: Oren Peli Writer: Oren Peli Staring: Katie Featherston, Micah Sloat, Mark Friedrichs, Amber Armstrong, Ashley Palmer Released: 9/29/2009 Rating: R Studio: DreamWorks Web Site: www.paranormalactivity-movie.com |
| “The movie that you Demanded”! “Scariest movie of the year”! Have you ever had the feeling you saw the wrong film? That the theater put the wrong reel on by accident? That is how I feel at this moment. My ticket says Paranormal Activity but this can’t be the movie that everyone loves. Can it? The most frightening film of all time? If this is in fact Paranormal Activity, am I missing something? Why am I bored and laughing? This movie is terrible! A young couple suspects that their house is haunted. They set up video surveillance to capture any evidence. It’s a simple plot that, sadly, is poorly executed. I have seen episodes of “Ghost Hunters” that were creepier. For starters the two stars of this film are totally unlikable. Katie is annoying and Micah is an ass. They are supposed to be “real” people but they don’t feel that way at all. Their performance feels stilted. Katie’s friend, who appears a few times, feel very out of place. Then we have the lame psychic. He only knows about ghosts and can’t help. The only plot point he serves is to let them know it would do no good to leave the house. If really knows nothing about demons how does he know? How dose he know it’s a demon at all for that matter? Anyway he doesn’t seem to care at all what happens to this couple. The camera stays on all night as the couple sleeps. It’s during this time that the “attacks” happen. The film uses a time lapse effect to speed things up and stops just before something happens. Then there is a low droning noise that appears. Great warning sign, wouldn’t want to startle the audience now would we? It sounds like the demon turns on the A/C. My favorite “attack” was when the light on the stairs comes on, we hear the demons footsteps coming up and then the light turns off. What, the demon needs to turn on a light to walk up stairs? I guess it would be pretty embarrassing for him to fall down or stub his demon toe. Hay at least he’s polite and turns off the light when he’s done. As the thumping grows into footprints and finally to an actual attack the feeling of dread is not there. I think that the daylight scenes take away all unease and each night they had to try and build any tension over again. Then there were the constant jump cuts. They made the film choppy and it lost any “real” feeling. I’m not sure if the ending was supposed be a twist or shock but it was neither. One could tell this sort of thing was coming as soon as Katie stood by the bed for 2 hours. That’s not scary that’s just annoying by the way. Paranormal Activity really disappointed me. I was so excited to see it and I was looking forward to a good scare. It’s been awhile since I have been scared by a film. I also wanted to like this film because I am a huge fan of underground and indie film- makers. I want to see them succeed and take over the main stream. However much I wanted to like this film I couldn’t. The scares and plot are predictable and bland. I was so bored in fact that I even checked my watch during it. |
