An old fashioned haunted house movie delivered in a Blair Witch style

Rating: 8/10 (18 October 2009)

This one will send genuine shivers down your spine. The house in the movie is a very typical southern California house (looks like houses on my block), and the whole movie was made for just $11,000. Yes, thousand. No missing zeros there. It's shot 'camcorder style' ala Blair Witch Project, only better (not so damn herky-jerky all of the time; they use tripods here and there). And it's not just a bunch of whiners lost in the woods, either. It's intense, yet very ordinary looking (the cast looks like they could be in the audience next to you) and claustrophobic. This one actually delivers the goods (unlike Blair Witch; I've coughed up scarier stuff than that movie)! And it's nice to see a horror film rated R that is not full awash in blood, over-the-top CGI visual effects or stitched together with hyperactive, over-stylized editing.
There are a few 'Exorcist' type moments here and there (thick, intense quiet broken by sudden, abrupt 'spookiness'). There are other nods to big "E" as well, but I don't want to give too much away. This movie is very clever in that it takes a very modern, 'un-haunted' looking home (in the 'burbs of San Diego, no less) and in the span of an hour and an half, turns it into a place of genuine dread and suspense (much as the big "E" did back in 1973 with an upscale house in Georgetown). With no-name actors playing the leads, it's much easier to believe in what you're seeing as well (it wouldn't work if it were Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz; it would burst the illusion right away).
I never jumped out of my chair or anything quite like that (and I didn't have my 'jump-meter' with me; aka as, "my wife"), but there were many moments that I felt genuine, involuntary tingles up and down my back (and NOT from a recent backache, either). PA takes a while getting started (something else I liked about it; it builds the suspense very incrementally). And there are almost NO visual effects; it's all creaking doors, strange noises, etc. A very old- fashioned haunted house movie retooled for the Blair Witch/YouTube generation. Only this time, it really works.
I was surprised at how expertly this one really plays on your nerves! Clever, innovative and genuinely suspenseful. No matter how I steeled myself for the scares, the involuntary spine- tingling came on rather fast and furious. This is a very good little haunted house movie (but it needs to be seen on a movie screen; trust me on that. No matter the TV size, home video will definitely reduce it's impact). And as far as many other recent horror movies go, "Paranormal Activity" has almost NO obvious visual effects (and almost no gore, either), but with suspense and dread so heavy they're almost separate characters in the film! And the bedroom 'overnight' scenes are so effective, you will see them imitated en masse very soon, I predict.
PA is well worth checking out. In its own way, it is right up there with "Legend of Hell House" "The Haunting ('63 version)" and George C Scott's brilliant, "The Changeling" in that it's minimalism is the key to its success. A model of horror restraint, and yet all the more terrifying for it.