What was that?

Rating: 1/10 (11 November 2009)

No, seriously, what just happened? Did I just watch a movie? I honestly don't want to waste my time trying to eloquently put forth my problems with this movie, so I'll just present some highlights in bulleted form below:
-Yes, this was very documentary-like, in that I have never been so bored watching a work of fiction before.
-About a quarter of the way in, myself and several other theater-goers were laughing outright at the corniness of the acting, writing, and directing.
-No, it's not immersive. The shaky-cam is, granted, better than some others I've seen (*cough* Cloverfield *cough*) but when you hear a "ghostly" bump and you snort, imagining the crew member jumping up and down in the living room, there's a problem.
-The main characters are in no way sympathy-inspiring. The guy was a antagonistic "tool" (a word I often heard my fellow patrons grumble at the screen when they weren't too busy rolling their eyes), and the woman was in no way endearing, having a grating personality on top of the fact that she is not only the reason for the haunting, but by extension, the subject of blame for the movie even existing.
-Finally, there was not even a semblance of intelligence written into these characters. Granted, you are supposed to have the "Don't go in there/do that" reaction in a horror film, but this went to the point of absurdity. When said reaction becomes the backbone of the film, what you have is simply a series of escalations to an inevitability...which is fine...if you have more than one character perpetrating each escalation...which "Paranormal Activity" did not.