If you like being scared, you'll love it. If you don't like being scared, you won't.

Rating: 8/10 (14 December 2010)

I really, really liked Paranormal Activity, but I tend to like this kind of movie. I know that there was a something of a backlash against this movie, as there was with The Blair Witch Project, and I think that it has to do with two things: the enormous return on investment and the refusal to go along for the ride.
The first is pretty easy to understand. Even I as an aspiring filmmaker am kicking myself for not coming up with the idea (as I did when I first saw Blair Witch). Someone making a movie for $10,000 or $15,000 and going on to make tens of millions of dollars as a result can frustrate anyone and some viewers allow those sour grapes to ruin the movie for them.
The second reason is more hard to understand: refusing to go along with it. In other words, some people a) can't get lost in the story and suspend their disbelief and b) simply don't want to be scared. I don't mean they're afraid to be scared; I mean they don't want to allow themselves to be scared. They hear that a movie is scary or disturbing and they have a desire to take the wind out of its sails be watching it and then boasting how trite and boring they found it. It's sort of an ego boost: THAT didn't scare ME.
I've now seen decades of horror movies and can honestly say that only a handful have really truly frightened me. Night of the Living Dead, Jaws, The Shining and the aforementioned The Blair Witch Project all had at least a few scenes which scared the crap out of me (The Shining has a palpably terrifying atmosphere from beginning to end).
In the past ten years or so, I can only say that a couple of movies got under my skin. Session 9 I found to be a genuinely creepy movie with a few heart-in-my-throat moments, and David Lynch's Inland Empire, thought perhaps not a straight horror movie, had a few moments that were the first to make me jump out of my seat in years.
You can imagine my delight, therefore, when I found myself jumping and actually being SCARED while watching Paranormal Activity. A very simple, well-made horror movie that works because it leaves so much to your imagination. Instead of throwing a barrage of gruesome CGI imagery at you, the movie creates a truly creepy atmosphere through sound, the occasional inanimate object moving and, most of all, the effective performances of the cast.
While the acting has a touch of the histrionic theatricality that most Hollywood performers display these days (something which Blair Witch avoided completely), the sense of fear and heartache is completely believable. Katie Featherston's terror is tangible and later, when frustration, anger and guilt join the cocktail of emotions, her final emotional breakdown (which is only briefly shown) is heart-breaking. This then makes her suddenly calm and tranquil demeanor toward the end all the more bizarre and unsettling. And Micah Sloat's alpha male smugness in the face of this unseen intruder is perfectly juxtaposed with his fleeting moments of real fear.
I like the fact that Micah never believes that they are truly in danger. I also think it's somewhat touching that no matter how angry or frustrated he gets with Katie, he is still ready to bolt to her rescue every time she calls to him. He truly loves and cares about her, which makes the conclusion of the movie all the more tragic. I should mention that Katie Fetherston should go down in horror history as one of the all-time best cinematic screamers! There is only one thing about the movie that I can really criticize: no matter how bad things get, they continue to sleep with the lights off. Simply from a believability standpoint, I would think that by a certain point, they would be far too unnerved to sleep in the dark.
But, I admit, that's nit-picking. Paranormal Activity will go down as one of the scariest movies I've seen in a while. I highly recommend it for horror fans who truly want to be scared and are willing to let their guard down and let the movie in.