Don't See It Alone

Rating: 8/10 (10 October 2009)

Katie and Micah are a couple who've just moved into a new home. Katie believes that malevolent spirits have been following her since childhood, though Micah is not so easily convinced. However, after several nights of loud noises and strange happenings, Micah starts to agree with Katie that some sort of ghost may have followed them to the new home. Micah decides to take control of the situation and sets up a battery of video cameras so that if a spirit manifests itself, he can capture its behavior on tape.
PARANORMAL ACTIVITY is a small, little horror movie that is getting a lot of buzz lately similar to BLAIR WITCH ten years ago. Let me start off by saying to not keep your expectations as high as the hype because the hype makes the film out to be the scariest film in the last decade and even the scariest film of all time, which is really ridiculous. Setting your standards based on the hype does the movie injustice. However, saying that, PARANORMAL ACTIVITY IS a good, scary film, which we rarely see in Hollywood these days. Oh, wait. This was PICKED UP by Hollywood. My mistake. Like BLAIR WITCH, the film starts off as if everything is fine which makes the scary scenes much more terrifying.
Hitchcock once said that suspense is the ANTICIPATION leading up to the explosion of a ticking time bomb and the scare is the bomb explosion itself. The former part of that statement describes PARANORMAL ACTIVITY perfectly. Like BLAIR WITCH, the film is all about the build up of fear, starting off very subtle but slowly escalating as the story progresses and by the end, you're almost killed by the tension! No, the movie doesn't rely on cheap gore effects, gratuitous violence, or useless nudity. No, it doesn't rely on CGI or make-up effects. It relies heavily on your sense of imagination, which, ultimately, is the cause of your own fear.
The film also has a real authenticity feel to it, especially the exchange between with actors Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat, whom both pull off very fine and realistic performances. Oh, and when you go home after the movie is finished, and when you get in your bed to sleep at night, good luck with that. This film not only makes you afraid of your own home, it effectively strips the securities of where you're suppose to feel the safest in the entire world the most: In your bedroom. A movie that makes you feel this vulnerable probably makes you want to see more of these films...or maybe less.
However, if there's one thing I don't like about the film, it's the ending. The movie builds up so well that the ending ends up feeling very abrupt and so very disappointing because it almost comes out of nowhere. There was no catharsis. But other than that, the film is scary. I'm already starting to feel the after-effects. If a film can manage to scare you and the audience with creaks from a door and footsteps coming from another room, you know the film succeeded. See the movie because I'd rather see an inventive, clever movie like this do well than SAW 57...oh, AND because it's scary.