Review: Paranormal Activity (2009)

Paranormal Activity
2009
86 minutes (wrongly listed as 99 minutes on most websites)
Rated R

by Scott Mendelson

It is a rare thing to walk into a movie by choice expecting to dislike
if not outright hate it. Yet off I went to a Saturday evening showing
of Paranormal Activity, praying that it would not be a replay of The
Blair Witch Project ten years prior. The ingredients were
frighteningly similar. We had a no-budget horror film shot on a home
video camera made to look like a documentary of real events, a
reliance on implied terror and just off-screen menace that
theoretically excused a lack of any actual scary imagery, and a
carefully plotted advertising campaign that played up word of mouth
from underground screenings and made the movie seem like an event that
you had to experience before your friends did. But, the results are
different this time. Maybe it's because I wasn't caught my surprise
this time around, and thus I knew what I was getting into. Or maybe
Paranormal Activity is just a better film than The Blair Witch
Project. But while Paranormal Activity certainly is not the scariest
film ever made, it also did not leave me with sharp feelings of anger,
betrayal, and the distinct impression that the moviegoing populace had
just been conned.

A token amount of plot - A young couple have recently moved in
together into a new home, but they've been plagued by various loud
noises and odd occurrences while they sleep. Determined to solve this
mystery, the couple sets up a video camera in the corner of their
bedroom to try to record some evidence of the mysterious goings-on.
Needless to say, if they didn't happen to record some most disturbing
stuff, then there would be no movie. But as the occurrences increase
in quantity and quality, the young couple realize that this may be
more complicated than a simple house-haunting. That's all you get and
that's all you need. Unlike other critics, I won't reveal how much or
how little you see or don't see. I won't tell you if the film relies
purely on off-screen scares or actually has some creepy imagery.
Unfortunately, the majority of the movie fails to truly terrify not
because of its minuscule budget, but because of the film's strict
adherence to its own rules. Horror films work best when you realize
that you cannot trust the filmmakers. But writer/director Oren Peli
crafts a low-tech chiller that almost plays too fair with the
audience.

I hesitate to say more, because I don't want to spoil by implication
(consider that a spoiler warning). But the film quickly sets a very
specific pattern as to when the scares might come and when you can
catch your breath. The very best scares (think the big jump-scenes in
Jaws or Deep Blue Sea) usually come during 'time-out moments', when
the plot and character seems to be developing in between horror set-
pieces. But the world in Paranormal Activity is very strictly divided
into 'potentially scary' and 'plot and character' scenes. Once that
line is set in stone by the first third of the picture, we know that
we will never, ever be caught off-guard. Furthermore (and this was a
big issue with Blair Witch as well as the theatrical cut of One Hour
Photo), the opening exposition basically establishes the fate of our
major characters, so once again we understand that everything that
happens until the end of the picture will be a false alarm of some
kind.

Of course, one might find terror through empathizing with our young
couple, but they aren't the least bit developed. While Katie
Featherstein makes an empathetic victim as the primary target of
terror, the male half (Micah Sloat) is written as annoying,
unsympathetic, and occasionally counterproductive. Even more so than
in The Blair Witch Project, the constant recording of every important
moment of the narrative strains believability. So despite the
ambitious ideas and somewhat successful execution, we are left with
several false scares that all occur exactly on cue with very little to
entertain us during the downtime (a wannabe ghost-buster provides rare
comic relief).

Having said all of that, it's a more honest film that The Blair Witch
Project. It won't make you dizzy, it's always in focus and easily
audible at all times. The movie never really cheats and establishes a
genuine filmmaking talent with just $11,000. If you must experience
the would-be phenomenon, make sure to go to a packed theater, so you
can at least enjoy the screams and shouts from more easily traumatized
moviegoers. It's not a terribly scary film, but it is occasionally
clever and it won't leave you feeling angry.

Grade: C+