The Horrors of Banality

Rating: 7/10 (10 November 2009)

It seems no mere coincidence that a sleeper so far below the radar it took two years to find big-time distribution and commercial success has come on the 10-year anniversary of the innovative (though somewhat thin) found-footage footsteps of "The Blair Witch Project." Also familiar is the carefully calculated hype machine (which began as grassroots chatter that slowly garnered major interest) used to land the film in as many theatres as possible, with the beaming, always-hyperbolic blurbs of impressed bloggers lighting the way.
When it wants to be (and it often is), "Paranormal Activity" is an effectively extemporaneous haunted-house freakout. Like "Blair Witch," it takes a simple premise (young couple encountering a restless, unseen presence in their home), and builds around it a claustrophobic vortex of suspense, where our (not always) sympathy-garnering protagonists become mankind's last stand against forces far beyond its control.
In an interesting narrative choice, the film begins with Katie and Micah (she's the reserved student; he's the cocky day-trader) already complicit with the strange happenings in their new house, to the point where Micah is actively recording the proceedings in hopes of catching an ectoplasmic curveball. Their banter possesses a slice-of-life realism that helps ground us in the banality of suburban America, complemented by the house's own lack of production-designed, artsy flourish. The consumer-grade camera work, while already a well-established avant-garde cliché, is fittingly abrasive and starkly honest.
With his shoestring budget and limited resources, writer-director Oren Peli has created a film that (yes, like "Blair Witch") requires the viewer to drop all expectations of a slick, glossy gorefest and embrace the lost art of the subtle, slow-burn scare. This is more of an Unease Film than a Horror Film. And while the sense of psychic disturbance in the air is indeed palpable, "Paranormal Activity" plays like an intriguing short subject stretched beyond its capacity; by the time the disappointing, jump-scare conclusion rolls around, it feels like an out-of-place shock in a film that doesn't quite know how to combine its parts into a satisfying whole (Katie's haunted past, for instance, is left dangling). And once the screen went black, I was just wishing Peli had pushed the supernatural elements even further. In the end, "Paranormal Activity" is a risible (yet not superior, especially in the wake of "Diary of the Dead" and "Quarantine") contender bringing up the tail end of a cinematic fad.
6.5 out of 10