The Paranormal Activity is in the ratings...

Rating: 2/10 (22 October 2009)

Ten years ago, two guys, Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez, put together a scary little film on a peanut-shell budget and utilized the still-fledgling Internet to create a seemingly "paranormal" phenomenon which became known as The Blair Witch Project. The film was shot from a first person perspective of an amateur film crew out to investigate "paranormal activity" stemming from a spooky little backwoods legend. The effects were simple, yet spine-chillingly effective and many folks began re-thinking the whole camping idea. It was an amazingly original idea and to this day, I still consider the film and its marketing campaign a work of genius. It was something new and without a doubt, prompted the whole "reality" scene we are all too familiar with today.
Now, fast forward to present day and we have been shelled with a film which attempts to capitalize on all the elements that made Blair effective. This time, however, the gimmicks are a mere hodgepodge of unoriginality from its shallow introduction of the protagonists to the dragging around on the floor REC (Quarantine) style, to the open-ended questions that are meant to linger in our minds when the final credits role. To boot, there is this very suspicious marketing campaign that borders on the edge of unethical where screenings and online reviews more than likely have been staged by greedy film execs to hype up that which just isn't worthy of the hype. Let's seeÂ… we have shadows, doors opening and closing, chandeliers swinging, sinister voices, and a whole lota' screams from the female lead. We even have a Ouija board. I am not kidding. They are pulling all the stops on all the haunted house gags this time. I found myself wondering when Abbott and Costello were going to run through the room chased by a dangling skeleton. The most fun you might have watching this little venture is if you bring along a pad and pen and jot down which film each of the overplayed "scares" are stolen from. Then, however, you still are forced to endure the most boring of sequences to make it to the next evening all the while dismissing all logic to believe a couple would even remain in this haunted house.
Frankly, I am very disappointed. I had hoped for a fun and scary ride with Paranormal Activity but it turned out to be nothing more than pretentious in an annoying sort of way. What is most "disturbing" is this clatter and clang of borderline heresy I keep hearing that suggests Paranormal Activity gauges up there with films such as The Exorcist. If you can look me in the eye and keep a straight face while trying to convince me that such fear can be derived here, I will most certainly wince with a disgusted perplexity and reply, "Surely you jest..."