Scary is scared of this movie

Rating: 8/10 (9 October 2009)

Before tonight, I can say that I have never seen a person run out of a movie screaming. After tonight, I can say I have.
I think that sums up the feeling of Paranormal Activity. This film follows in the same style of film-making as Cloverfield and Quarantine using hand-held cameras by the actors themselves to give the audience the feeling that this is actually happening. To say that this film didn't scare me would be a lie. I wasn't the one running and screaming out of the theater, but I was among the vast majority of the audience who was on edge ready to jump at the fall of a hat.
The film takes place in 2006 (it was probably filmed around this time because it was entered in some festivals in 2007). The main characters Micah and Katie live together in a nice home where for a while they have been experiencing strange occurrences in the night like footsteps, banging on the walls, and voices. Micah gets a video camera to document the situation. This is where we jump right in.
Katie has been troubled by this since she was a little child. Apparently it has followed her back. It is quite evident that whatever has come into the house is not welcome. Every night Micah sets up the camera in the bedroom and records to see if he can catch the "haunt" in the act.
Little by little we see this happy couple become pestered, tormented, and pushed to the limit. Micah's camera is our only source of evidence (and the only camera filming) and we see it all. This film really does crawl under your skin. Micah and Katie act as realistic as possible given the circumstances they are presented with. The actors names are actually Micah Sloat and Katie Featherston. They are really the only people in the film with a few friends and the help of a psychic.
This film succeeds mainly because of the mood filmmaker Oren Peli creates. We are given a nice back story for these characters and we feel for them. It's almost like watching a home movie. This realistic effect enhances the supernatural aspect of the story, making every bump in the night and strange occurrence that much more believable.
Even with the low budget, guerrilla style film-making, the effects are excellent. There is no music in the film, one thing that most good horror films don't use. Silence is the ultimate suspense enhancer. If you can cut the sound, make your audience lean in a little, and then blow them away with a scare, you have won them over. There are several times where this is achieved either by showing something or not showing something. Anticipation and just the waiting for something to happen makes the scare element extremely potent.
Some parts of the film lag a bit, but it only adds to the home movie aspect of the story. It can't be scary the entire time otherwise the suspense wouldn't be there. We are never sure where we are going to go. Every time we fade to the couple in bed we know that something is going to happen. We see the bed, the door, parts of the dark hallway, but other than that we are given very little and we have to wait and see what happens next.
Writing about this film is giving me the chills. I would be lying if I said I haven't looked over my shoulder once or twice. This was a good old fashioned scare-a-thon with a lot of thrills and plenty of chills. I am very impressed with this first feature by Peli. Tremendous job and a complete success. He achieved exactly what he aimed for: to scare the pants off of people.