Would be scarier if we cared about the characters

Rating: 4/10 (2 October 2012)

First thing I want to say is that although it is cheaply made, the effects are very well done. Way better than I expected, the film actually looks pretty good.
The idea is good. The script is however half-baked. I didn't like the characters. The female character reacted pretty believably, but the male character, despite the acting being pretty good, was so unbelievably written. Honestly, I wanted to yell at the TV it was so bad.
There is also no character development at all - we never discover anything about the couple's life apart from a) they have a sexual relationship (duh!), b) he bought a camera and c) she hates the camera.
I mean what do they do during the day? What are they doing about the weird crap that's happening? Or even simple things like: what do they do for a living? where did they meet? What bonds them together? I can't answer any of those questions... which is pretty big holes in the writing.
As for the "paranormal" character, practically nothing is revealed except for identifying what it is (thanks to the token appearance of the "psychic" - what that has to do with spotting paranormal activity is beyond me).
After it is identified, there is no information about why it's there or what to do about it. And they make no further effort to find out anything or even do anything about it (oh let's just go back to sleep) - it's so stupid that I want to scream at the TV.
So that means that every scene outside the scary bits is just a bunch of completely irrational, stupid behavior and conversations between the two leads that go nowhere.
So honestly, the only interesting bits are all the frightening scenes at night when the two characters are mostly asleep. That is where my 4 stars come from, because the idea and events are pretty creepy and really well shot. It's just the rest of the story has no substance - unlike Blair Witch for example, where we see very little, but learn a lot about the witch from the other character's research.
I enjoyed half the movie, but I unfortunately can't recommend it. I will not touch the next 3 (3???) movies that have been made since.