Greatest Horror Movie Dissolved

Rating: 1/10 (20 January 2010)

So my older brother comes to visit, and brings me a DVD copy of "Paranormal Activity". He explains that it is the best movie he has seen in years. Deciding to give the movie a try, I set out to do just that. Late at night, my girlfriend and I get comfortable in a dark room, turn on Paranormal Activity, and spend the next hour or so wondering where it all went wrong.
~Spoiler Warning!~ First, the two people in the movie are clearly not emotionally engaged with each other. They appear to be in their 20's, and most couples in that age group show more physical emotion than verbal. Basically, the couple rarely hug or kiss, and even more rarely say I love you or any endearing phrases at all.
Second, the girl tells us that she has been haunted by some strange entity since she was a young girl. This surprises me as the couple have been together for a few years, and yet her boyfriend doesn't know anything about it? Strange things happening at night that constantly wake people from their REM cycle, would be a hard kept secret. Especially for multiple years.
Third, the camera sits on a tripod for most of this movie. It watches the bed, and looks out the door into a hallway outside the master bedroom. While the couple are setting things up, they turn a light on at the end of the hall so that everything can be seen. Once they turn off their bedroom light, everything goes black and white, and the light from the hall disappears. Why does this light turn off when their bedroom light turns off? Who knows. Perhaps the director was a moron and connected the switches improperly. Maybe all the outlets in the house turned off when the bedroom light went out. Or maybe, its just one huge mistake like the rest of the movie. Lets continue...
Fourth, when the camera is not on the tripod, one of the actors is carrying it. This reminds me of the Blaire Witch Project, which only got big due to its huge hype of "A video cassette was found in the woods. Here is the actual footage", which went downhill when people found the actors were in other movies a few years later. During this time of the moving camera, the actors are very good at being useless. The girlfriend wants to ignore things and hope they go away, which is very unrealistic. All while the boyfriend wants to tease the creature to see what it is capable of, simply so he can get it on camera. Poor acting is no excuse for a low budget, great actors are in low budget plays all the time, and they still have to seem realistic.
Fifth, the scary stuff. If you have not seen the movie, or do not want the big spoiler to be known, please don't read this section. The "haunting" spirit first knocks some keys onto the floor while the couple are sleeping. Can we prove this? No, because the keys are in the kitchen and the camera is in the bedroom. The spirit then bangs on a wall to wake the couple. Could this be from another source? Something outside hitting the house could cause the same effect, as could an animal climbing around in your attic. The spirit then moves the door slightly, which is seen by the camera. Is there any explanation for this? Things like this happen in my house all the time. Old houses shift, and wood frames bow during the year. We have days where doors stick shut because the frames are too tight, simply from the temperature. Two big ends that really killed the movie for me. First, the girl stands up in a deep sleep and doesn't move for multiple hours. Not really all that scary. Odd, yes. Scary, no. Second is when the girl is pulled out of bed, and dragged down the hallway. First, she is pulled out of bed by her leg and dropped on the floor, landing hard enough to wake her, but not hard enough to wake her boyfriend. Did I mention they have a hard wood floor? My 3 year old rolled out of his 8 inch high bed, and weighing only 35lbs or so, hit a carpeted floor, and I still heard it from almost 30 feet away (Through walls!!). And yes, I was sleeping when it happened. To continue, the girl lands on the floor and wakes up. She does a quick double take to see where she is, but is then grabbed and ripped through the door by some unseen force. Doors slamming, loud footsteps, standing for hours while you sleep, and when you wake up on the floor, your as calm as can be? Not terribly realistic. Not only does she get dragged away, but she doesn't start screaming until she has been pulled completely out of the bedroom. Not when she feels something grabbing her legs. Not when she realizes she is being dragged. She makes it from the bed, all the way through the door, being dragged on her chest across HARD WOOD, yet she doesn't scream for the first 5-8 feet of floor? ~End Spoiler~ After everything, I really wish I hadn't spent the 90 or so minutes fast forwarding to the "good parts", which weren't that good. I wouldn't recommend this movie to anyone. This movie is such useless crap that I wouldn't wish such a waste of time on my most hated enemy. The world would be a much better place without movies like this or the Blaire Witch Project.
For those people that watched the movie and found it scary, I pity you, and your taste for poor movies.