Monday 2 November 2009

Mini Review - ‘Paranormal Activity’

Definitely affective, but to compare it to ‘The Blair Witch Project’ is to do it a disservice as they are very different films.

Poor Katie has been visited by something ghostly since she was 8 years old.
She has now moved in with her alpha male boyfriend Micah and the trouble is starting again.
Small things like noises inside the house and taps turning on, but enough to freak Katie out and to get Micah believing that something may be happening.

So he gets a video camera to record things that happen while they are sleeping.

If you are hoping for flying shadows and floating tables you will be disappointed. Instead, what we get is small sounds, whispers, a suddenly swinging ceiling light.

As the nights go on, and Katie gets more and more frightened, Micah decides to take matters into his own hands, much to her frustration and anger and the annoyance of the audience. Why do alpha males never take advise?

First rule of hauntings – do not invite the spirit in or shout at it, and the last thing you should do is get a Ouija board.

As things get worse and worse the fear mounts to the point where you wish for the shakey hand held cam of these previous reality horror outings.
That static still image of their bedroom is the most frightening thing of all, you need the distraction. Looking at that bedroom trying to see what is going on is enough to drive you insane.

I was lucky enough to see the original ending of the film, and although slightly anti climatic, it still is extremely disturbing and also extremely sad.

Over all the film succeeds in doing what it set out to do, and impressively by doing very little. You do not need a visible victim, horrific violence and lots of gore to scare the sh*t out of your audience when things that go bump in the night are much more affective.
The Boyfriend had to stay up watching ‘Ugly Betty until 6:30 as he was too scared to sleep.

Grade - B

1 comment:

Passport Stamps said...

To be quite honest, I was not at all impressed by this movie. With the massive hype surrounding it, I was expecting something very epic. First of all, I was never scared. The audience at the theatre kept laughing through out most of the movie. It almost felt like a comedy movie or something. The scenarios also weren't realistic. After the incident with the foot prints, you would think Micah and Katie would be more serious about the situation and move out or seek professional help or go to some crazy priest in church or do something drastic. Then again a lot of scenarios in horror movies aren't realistic.

Micah to me was the star of the movie with his hilarious one liners. Though I didn't particularly find him funny, the audience laughed out loud whenever he opened his mouth.

I haven't seen the original ending but I have a feeling I would prefer it to the one shown in theatres. The new ending was very "The Ring"- esque if you ask me lol.

I hear there is a sequel in the works.