childhood fears

Rating: 8/10 (29 January 2010)

This film took me back to my childhood when I was sometimes allowed to stay up and watch the 'late film'. Everything in this film depends on your imagination, the understanding that what you can't see, what you don't know, is potentially the most horrifying thing you will ever experience. It is not a horror film in the modern sense (modern being the blood/slash/kill/scream films), and I can understand those who will dismiss this film as over-hyped. Now I can sit through the saw/hostel paint by numbers horror/torture porn, appreciate what they have done and have a good nights sleep, but Paranormal Activity played on my mind as I turned out the lights and therefore it has worked. Of course there are moments that don't work, that make you think 'why don't they just...', but there are in every film. The true horror of this film is that it makes you think of what might be lurking outside your bedroom door rather than showing you.