Paranormal Activity: It's Like I Can Touch You

Rating: 6/10 (29 December 2009)

When it comes to watching a horror movie in this decade, the average moviegoer has two things to worry about: cheap thrills or senseless gore. If you're lucky you can possibly get both, sinking you right in the middle of a subdued snuff film with a pacified plot. Yet, every once and a while a few films come out that give pause and at least try. Paranormal Activity, written and directed by newcomer Oren Peli, takes what humans find in the deep recesses of our subconscious and use it against us: the fear of the unknown.
The ploy, which is in no means original or unique in any form, goes like that; take an overpriced camera, two twenty-something's that live together, and have them try and solve "the mystery of their haunted house," in dilapidated Scooby-Doo antics. With the help of a "The Psychic" and blind stumbling, they go through documenting everything from each bump and creak, to their aggravation and paranoia.
Again, this concept is nothing new. Go back into the crevices of your mind and think back to 1999, when The Blair Witch Project first flashed onto the silver screen. The irrational cuts, blurry and unfocused camera-work, to help ram home the idea that this truly happened to these pitiful kids. Now, fast-forward ten years and you have this movie with, more or less, the same M.O. However the differences are noticeable. Peli graciously and appropriately forgoes those troublesome camera antics, sticking to keeping that camera stable for around half of the film, while the rest is moving around in an amount that even your Uncle Charlie at family reunions wouldn't get sick over (something that people from Cloverfield and Blair Witch had serious issues with). What's more, since the main character Micah (Micah Sloats) is reviewing and editing all of the footage as he goes, it is cut and styled in a suitable manner so it doesn't look produced, having that "do-it-yourself" feel.
As far as the cheap thrills and bumps in the night go, you are going to have those regardless of how you feel. The anticipation walking into a horror movie is going to amplify every breath and every creak, even if they weren't supposed to be there originally. Now I will say that when then first of the haunting starts, you can tell that Peli is purely trying to mess with your mind. Yet as the movie progresses, the psychological aspects begin to get to you, leaving you wading in tension a forearm thick.
Which would leave would superb movie, if it weren't for the leads. Micah comes off as a narcissistic buffoon, only in this hunt to amplify his own bravado and to prove to himself and to his fiancé Katie (Katie Featherston) in a "Me Tarzan, you Jane" approach that says he can take care of anything. While Katie starts off on the right foot, only to flip- flops before spiraling down for obvious reasons that I will not mention (no spoilers here folks). The baseline is that their actions and motives throughout were so horrendous that you get lost in their idiocy. Even if that doesn't stop you, their actions will.
Thus, it makes it hard to remember that this is a movie set three years in the past, making their ignorance of the unknown almost passable. Paranormal activity was just sparking interest, and hence the setting of the movie, and whatever they did, they were truly making up as they went. However some things, common sense can gently prod you in the back of the mind, and say, "Get the hell out, you moron!"
Again, this movie was watched and reviewed on the DVD release, and with that, I was able to see two of the three alternate endings of the movie, showing some of the better ways the characters ended. Supposedly, these two were picked because they were the best received out of the group, yet I cannot help but feel that the third that is missing was one of the better ones to see. I will say that for anyone watch the DVD, that the alternate ending is a much better end in terms of a subtler, and fitting end.
Why Peli thought to only put two of the three, I can only speculate. Perhaps he figured he could do whatever he wanted, since truthfully when a movie with a $15,000 production budget makes over $200 million, you can. And it is easy to see why. After you place aside the awkward characters and other minor issues, you have a movie that people have not seen in years; a movie that scares you for being there. You don't see what is there, but you assume something is. There is no green screen or CGI, just well placed camera-work.
It's a re-installment of something a decade past, but when done with a little work and forethought, it can be handled with fear and shivers. I myself can say I was a little tense after, wondering what would happen next, and knowing that the other nine people in the room felt the same. Some may scoff or throw it aside, but even if that feeling is there for an instant, then the movie did its job.