Still effective at some parts and in some ways.

Rating: 6/10 (21 July 2011)

Just like "The Blair With Project" this movie its idea is better than the actual execution. Also the entire marketing campaign behind it was better and more effective than the actual movie, just like was the case with "The Blair With Project", which is the reason why the movie doesn't really lives up to its hype but you at least still can call it original and effective in some parts.
Yes, in this age of modern horror this movie does definitely feel like a breath of fresh air. You could say that his movie is more old school horror and doesn't depend so much on its writing but more on its atmosphere and build up. But this only works for so long. You could say that the movie is being a bit of a lackluster as well, since you are constantly waiting for something to happen or develop. But as strange as it may sound, that was actually what I liked about this movie.
It kept you guessing and constantly waiting. The movie didn't provide much information and it at its beginning does a good job at setting up the right required tension and mystery. It constantly makes you aware and ensures that you keep paying attention to the screen, knowing that something might happen, that you might miss when you blink. The movie at that point only consists out of the occasional weird sound, or a sudden falling object. That's old school film-making in its very essence and at its very best. But the movie is not consistent with that unfortunately. I actually began to dislike the movie when suddenly more and more paranormal activity start to happen, which was just too much to really take serious. The movie actually became sort of ridicules, which also made all of the events suddenly terribly ineffective and just not scary at all. This gets increasingly worse when the movie is heading toward its end.
It also doesn't help much that the actors aren't much good. The movie really suffers from that. Because this is an extremely low-budget movie it only has inexperienced actors in it who don't express their emotions and fears very convincingly. The movie pretends like it consists entirely out of found footage (again, just like "The Blair With Project") but even those who are ignorant enough to believe this at first will soon realize it's all 'fake' once they see the actors try to act in this movie. Seriously, with some professional actors instead of amateurs this movie could had been still about ten times as effective to watch.
Still I'm willing to give this movie plenty of credit, not just for what it achieved globally at the box offices but also for what it is as a movie. It's a movie with a shoe-string budget but it came up with a very creative idea that cost very little money and actually let its low-budget work for the movie and its concept. It also shows that you don't need lots of money to successfully create a horror atmosphere and can also manage without having to fall back on all sort of gore or effects.
It's also a movie made with the viewpoint of only just one camera and only has an handful of characters in it, at just one location. This is not the easiest way of film-making but they did a very good job with this all. So I still have lots of respect for Oren Peli for making this movie but that all still doesn't make this movie a great one.
I am still sure that with the right crowd and under the right circumstances this can still be a good scary movie to watch.
6/10
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