Wait for the dollar theater

Rating: 1/10 (14 November 2009)

Me and my friends, true horror nerds to the core, could not wait for this movie. Much like with Cloverfield, we saw the advertisements and viral campaign on the horror blogs and youtube, and were crazy in love with this movie. Also much like with Cloverfield, we left the theater with a cold feeling of hatred deep in our hearts -- hatred for the mainstream turd that is the modern horror.
The movie itself was wonderfully presented. The "less is more" approach to this movie -- both in special effects and in scripted dialog -- is exactly what most modern horror films need. The "acting" was well enough (if improve really can be considered acting), and the tastes of comedy during the daytime portions of the movie truly amused me.
Good production, good comedy and acceptable acting only make a mediocre film at best. The idea of demon possession has been done before, the fauxumentary approach has also been done before -- and with the Exorcist and Blair Witch Project as obvious comparisons, one needs to perfect their pizazz in order to compete.
This is where Paranormal Activity fails.
The pacing was unbearably slow. Knowing that the movie was just outside of an hour and a half, I was expecting a lot more supernatural and lot less ordinary. Instead, I painstakingly awaited a scene where anything happened. Once it came, it was another long wait for it to have any significance on the plot whatsoever.
The characters were unlikeable. When you present a victim in a film, you're supposed to make the audience feel connected to that person so that they have an emotional stake in the outcome of the film. Micah comes off as nothing more than a big immature jerk; the girl (can't even remember her name) comes off as whiny, controlling, and helpless. Neither one of them contribute to the story in any way, and when you sever the feeling of "this is me", you get an audience that doesn't care what happens to them. Or somebody who starts cheering on the bad guy, which really ruins that feeling of tension all that slow pacing was trying to build.
Oh yes, and a tried and true trick of the trade? Your lead characters are supposed to lead your audience's emotions. When your lead characters respond to a haunting playfully, indifferently or by goading it, then your audience is going to fall into that mindset. "This is a game; this is fun; this is not scary." Paranormal Activity will probably provide some cheap scares for the timid, unexperienced (with horror movies in general), or those with pre-existing phobias to darkness, close spaces or hauntings. I would not recommend this film to anybody else.