We actually turned it off........after only 45 minutes.

Rating: 1/10 (29 January 2010)

"Paranormal Activity". What can be said?! Well, let me see. I kept hearing from family and friends about this movie and how scary it was, (yeah o.k.) and in all reality I had no intention of seeing it even though I LOVE scary movies. Then I saw a commercial for it on t.v. and saw a magazine heading saying..."Scariest movie of all time"...(VERY boastful statement wouldn't you say?). Curious, I decided to stroll down to the video store to rent a copy and was prepared to be scared to death!!!........Turned out I was actually bored to tears.
Don't get me wrong. To me, it is the "things that go bump in the night" and "shadows lurking in doorways" that make for a WONDERFUL scary movie. Not blood and guts and gore, but the "unseen". IF they are done correctly that is. And in this case...they weren't.
This whole "camcorder concept" has been done to death. I think that is what ruined this movie. "Blair Witch Project" proved that, and in itself another awful movie. Then came "Cloverfield". Even though it too was shot in the said mentioned concept, it wasn't that bad. It wasn't that good either. In other words: QUIT WITH THE CAMCORDER CONCEPT! It ends up looking like something you would see on "Americas Funniest Home Vidoes"!
But, I digress.
Anyway, after only 45 minutes of annoying chatter between the couple and a few sounds of "bumps in the night", disgusted, I actually turned it off and watched "T2". Then the following day I felt I would give it another shot, since I really didn't give it a chance the prior viewing, so I turned it back on and watched it from start to finish plus watched the "alternate ending". Still, I wasn't impressed. The entire process was like watching some silly paranormal show on the History Channel or something. You know those shows where these people go heading into haunted houses with their night vision cameras and jumping out of their skins to any sound they hear and any spot on a lens they call a ghost? A ghost, when in fact it is a bug? Silly and UNscary stuff. That is what this "movie" is.
The story is of a young student who lives with her day-trader boyfriend in a suburban home, who since childhood, has been tormented by an evil "entity" and her boyfriend goes out and buys a camcorder in hopes of capturing the spirit on film and rid her of its presence once and for all. Then what follows is a series of events which proves the entity does in fact exist. (Looks good on paper).
I am not sure what bothered me the most: the irritating annoyance of the boyfriend or the lack of actual scares! The ONLY sequence that got me was "Night 20": the entity pulling the girl out of bed by her foot and dragging her down the hall. "Kinda" chilling, but not very. In any event, to call this the "scariest movie of all time" is an insult to the whole genre of film making. The acting was less than believable and it was NOT terrifying. It looked like something a couple of kids might make. And the endings were just terrible...both of them.
What really astonished me was seeing the commercials on t.v. (yet again), and seeing the audiences responses: screaming, gasping. Whatever. Plus, the "too frightening to be shown in theaters" business? Who thought thought that up? It just shows the mental capacity of todays audience and leaves one wondering, "Why would you pay to see garbage like this when you can turn on your t.v. set and watch the same thing for free?".
So, I returned the DVD to the video store and demanded my money back. Which I got.
SAVE YOUR MONEY and watch "The Amityville Horror" (the original, not that ridiculous remake), if your in the mood for a ghost story. As bad as "Amityville" was...it is STILL superior to this dredge.
No wonder it sat on the shelf for awhile. I can see why.