Pretty corny rubbish, really, but something keeps you hooked to the end

Rating: 4/10 (8 April 2010)

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning
These types of 'shaky hand held camera' horror films have been very much in the fashion over the last few years, with notable films including The Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield and Quarantine. And this offering that Steven Spielberg apparently called 'the scariest film he'd ever seen', which focuses on a couple who share a big house in the San Diego suburbs that seems to suffer from a demonic squatter. It's my fault for not checking it more closer, but being a motion sickness sufferer, these films just don't appeal to me. Why I didn't switch Paranormal Activity off about half an hour in to it is baffling to me, since the plot and the two main characters just weren't engaging me that much and yes, I was starting to feel slightly ill. But despite the corny story that you can take the michael out of till the cows come home and the irritating lead couple, I was compelled to watch it to the end. Somehow, this very average, flawed film does create a genuine air of mystery with regards the supernatural presence, weirdly more so when a specialist confirms it feels more like a 'demon' than a ghost. When the mystery ending does come by, it doesn't really come as a revelation or clear anything up, and in some ways is just as laughable as the film has been up to this point, but all the same, Paranormal Activity has a supernatural hold over you. **