Devestating

Rating: 1/10 (29 November 2009)

To start i'm somewhat an amateur film maker with a few steps through the door of the industry. So maybe thats the critical eye i watched this film with.
Anyway I was a big fan of the Blair Witch Project. Thought the Faux-Docu way of presenting it was worth it, it added to the film and made it scary, making it look like raw footage. Not seeing what was going on was a very positive way of telling a haunting story you imagine your own fears in replacement to this.
Paranormal Activity uses these same techniques only it mixes them in the wrong way, it bumbles along for the best part building up, back-story etc which is fine with me as long as it has something it's building to, something to deliver.
This is where it fails. It brings in elements that were un-necessary (won't elaborate as to spoil) and almost brings in ideas that weren't thought of at the beginning, making it feel like it really was made up as it went along. OK so maybe it should feel like it's made up but watch the film you'll see no structure was pulled together at all and it is still a film, which should hold some sort of narrative even if it is supposed to be real footage.
Not to give away the ending, i really must say i didn't see it coming, simply because there was no cause for it to happen it came out of nowhere and just left it there, so ye i really didn't see it coming and was more blundered by the "what the hell was that" factor not shocking not anything. Almost like the director said "hey! hurry up and end this we're running out of battery" I really like to see small films do really well and can't blame the success of this film, though i think this is highly due to the marketing not so much word of mouth. There are many ways i would have done this film different but as you'll read above i know the industry and i know how to make films so i'll always look at it from a different perspective than the average cinema goer. So perhaps i'm wrong on all aspects.
As far as i'm concerned this film was marketed well and didn't pull any punches not nearly as much as was promoted, not scary on any level and fell flat. though i still expect a sequel this is Hollywood cash cow now.