Worth seeing...

Rating: 7/10 (10 October 2009)

FOR ME the scare factor for this was highly overrated. It's kind of creepy, but it's never really outright scary, it nowhere near plumbs the depths of terror. I would say the movies that have scared me the most are The Ring and The Orphanage. I think maybe why it isn't very scary is because it's not visually explicit/vivid so it lacks real terror - that doesn't mean every horror movie needs to have an actual monster depicted or ghastly-looking things happening, but it is why Paranormal Activity isn't anywhere near as scary as horror movies can be. This does have tension building up sometimes, but trust me, it's not exactly a visceral, super powerful, heart-pounding kind of experience like people have been saying. I would say the scariest part of it was in the last few minutes.
I don't think what this movie does is that original, the personal-camera-perspective thing is a bit like movies like Cloverfield. And the dialogue is not super intelligent. But I do applaud their making a movie entirely without special effects, other than a few visual tricks, and leaving the horror entirely implicit. It's not really anything like The Blair Witch Project, I don't know why people are comparing it to that other than the minimalist/non-explicit aspect.
The guy, Micah, is kind of stupid and annoying, grossly insensitive to his girlfriend at times, and therefore not realistic in that way. I don't think he should have acted as he did, and he's just not a very strong part of the movie. That's not to say he's just totally an idiot that we can't relate to. But I think the strongest part of it is actually Katie's performance towards the end, her reactions to the hauntings as they become more personally targetted and escalated; it really is how you would feel and act. I really felt for her then, I was sorry for her. To see someone in so much suffering and horror is very moving.
So is it scary? Not really. But it's still worth seeing, pretty enjoyable, and a little bit different, despite the moderate weakness of the dialogue and Micah's acting/behavior.