One major flaw that hurts the entire film!

Rating: 6/10 (12 November 2009)

Paranormal Activity could have been more than just a very scary movie, but due to a specific major flaw, the entire film falls into being unbelievable & absurd; wasting every realistic aspect to the movie that it tried so hard to be.
There are two main characters in the movie. You have the female/girlfriend character (Katie) and the male/boyfriend character (Micah); where the ghost/demon/entity is haunting the young couple. Now, the major flaw that lies in this movie is the Micah character. The personality and actions by the boyfriend is so idiotic, unrealistic, selfish and illogical. Micah is absolutely STUPID and his character literally ruins the whole movie, where I actually started to root for the demon! As I watched the beginning of this film, I was very intrigued in where the story was taking me; but as the movie progresses, the Micah character is very distracting, by all his ridiculous personality & actions. After numerous paranormal activities that Micah had already captured on his own camera, I officially lost interest to the film after the boyfriend said "What the f**k was that!" for the 20th time! The actress who portrays Katie did a fantastic job and had a believable performance; but due to the distractions of Micah's unrealistic behaviors, his performance even begins to hurt Katie's role by the time the film nears its conclusion.
The major reason why Micah's character seems absolutely disjointed is his lack of concern for his girlfriend. In the beginning of the film, it's brought to our attention that the two are a young couple who are "engaged to be engaged", so we're assuming that they absolutely love each other. Maybe Micah isn't the brightest guy in the world, or maybe he was very interested in seeing ghostly activities; but nevertheless, there is no way a loving boyfriend would ever put his girlfriend through so much grief & agony for his own selfish indulgences.
Other than the flaws in the boyfriend's character, the visuals in this amateur film were excellently done! All the bedroom scenes gave you chills and most importantly, you thought about those sequences after the movie ended; especially when you got home to your own bedroom. This film was creepy and I give the filmmakers absolute kudos for accomplishing that with a minimal budget.
I may seem highly critical & harsh on this amateur film, but this movie had so much potential and I really wanted this film to work. "Character Writing" is the most important ingredient to a story, and when the audience starts to loose sympathy for the victims in peril, then there is something seriously wrong with the main characters. If only the writer/director Oren Peli decided to rewrite & restructure the boyfriend character, Paranormal Activity could have been a brilliant horror film.