Paranormal Activity (2009)
Starring Brian Anthony, Darian Caine & Alex Bolla
Directed by Len Kabasinski
Written by Len Kabasinski

 

This review will be pretty brief, and it can be summed up easily: If you like ghost stories, you need to see this movie. Paranormal Activity instantly became one of my favorite haunting movies.

For myself, I was drawn to P-A for its realism, subtlety, and accuracy in portraying haunted house cases. Or in this case, rather, haunted persons. From the explanation by the paranormal researcher to the different types of apparitions, here, one that doesn't appear to have ever been a human, to the idea that haunting becomes worse after attempting to speak with or contact a spirit, these are all elements common to documented haunting cases. Grant you, by the end of the movie, the activity in question becomes more extreme than anything ever caught on film, but its certainly a good portrayal of the slow escalation of terror by a specter.

P-A does what it can to heighten the feel of realism. The movie doesn't claim to be a true story, Blair Witch played that card, and it can really only be played one time. But it does work hard at facsimile. Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat play themselves in the film, and are a believable couple. Though they maybe could have cranked up the eventual hysteria up a notch, generally they give good performances. The film opens with a thank-you to the San Diego police, and has no credits at the end, just a copyright notice. The entire film takes place from the perspective of Micah's surveillance camera. The idea has been done before, but this example works best, and feels the most authentic of any other work to date.

The authenticity works, because the audience I was with, and audiences everywhere, were pissing their pants over this movie.

Often, I think back to when I was a young man, a High School senior no less, anticipating Blair Witch to come to theaters. There was a missing persons case. There were documentaries about the history of the area, and the supposed witch and her execution, as well as other cases in the past. And when I finally saw Blair Witch, I about crapped myself, because I thought it was real... once you saw the cast on Letterman a few weeks later, who shrugged and proclaimed “Fooled you!”, the charm really wore off. But I remember how frightening that experience was, and how often I wish another movie would come along to match that fear.

Paranormal Activity wasn't that for me, but it did have the audience shrieking and jumping throughout, so it hit that level for quite a number of people. As the audience exited, pulses were racing, and there were many looking forward to a sleepless night. While I'm not one to generally jump at movies, I can say that I had ghostly dreams inspired by thoughts of phantoms that followed the film. And its amazing too, as there's virtually no blood, not a lot of violence, and such a slow build on the tension in the film. Most of the scares are from creepy noises, bumps in the dark, shadows and altered perceptions. But the characters drive the points home, and even the simple clomps of invisible feet upon the stairs had my seat-buddies clasping the arm-rests white-knuckle tight.

Its not a visceral experience by any means, but somehow Paranormal Activity is able to create a believable enough haunting to drive an audience's paranoia through the roof. Those sensitive to ghost stories will be out of their mind with fear, and the rest of us can enjoy a movie that doesn't have to go over the top with the ghosts like, say, The Haunting (1999) or Ghost Ship. Its a film that proves that even the flipping of a blanket by an unseen hand is enough to terrify an audience when you make them feel that sense of the... inhuman.