Creepy and believable but over-hyped horror.

Rating: 6/10 (10 November 2012)

With a cast of only five amateurs and a budget of a mere $15,000, director Oren Peli deserves tremendous praise for even managing to form a feature length movie never mind take the world by storm.
Peli's 'Paranormal Activity' is being dubbed in the same bracket as great horror classics such as 'The Exorcist' and 'Poltergeist' and that for the director and anyone involved is an achievement in itself. Perhaps though, some critics are a little too easily frightened as the things they described 'Paranormal Activity' as were completely over-the- top.
I vaguely remember feeling a chill or two, missing a heart beat and perhaps biting my upper lip however I was massively disappointed that my expectations were wide of the mark. Certainly was this not 'The Scariest Movie of all Time', far from it, the amount of scares were few and far between and some of them didn't have as great an effect on the viewer as others.
With a mockumentary plot revolving around Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat starring as themselves, the combination of CCTV footage and hand-held camera footage gave a detailed account of the paranormal events which occur in the young couples' home.
In fairness, the acting is outstanding considering the lack of experience in the ranks; the final third of the film is also rather disturbing. Unfortunately, the premise is a little clichéd and not very interesting since it's not actually 'real footage' so 'Paranormal Activity' is over reliant on the fear it injects into us. That fear doesn't begin to arrive for some time and when it does, it's not as shocking as you may interpret beforehand.