(There will be some spoilers in this Review, I will attempt not to be too specific except for the beginning)
Paranormal Activity mania is sweeping the nation, as almost everyone knows. This independent film written and directed by Oren Peli was reportedly produced for around $15,000 and has made over 62 million dollars at the box office so far. This film, which gained wide release by Paramount via an on-line, “Demand,” site where 1,000,000 demands were required for Paramount to release the film starring Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat. Word-of-Mouth has also had tremendous impact on the box office take for this film, which leaves only one question:
Does it live up to the hype?
Paranormal Activity begins with Micah (Micah Sloat), a day trader, showing his girlfriend Katie (Katie Featherston) a camera that he had bought earlier that day for, “About half of what I made today.” It soon becomes known to the viewer that Micah purchased this camera in order to capture recurring paranormal events going on inside of their shared home. Initially, the viewer will get the impression that these paranormal events are mostly bump-in-the-night nuisance hauntings, but that turns out not to be the case.
After a few nights with some activity, Katie finally convinces Micah to allow (She’s a full-time graduate student, so presumably it’s his money) a psychic to come in and discuss this activity with them. It turns out that these incidents have been plaguing Katie since around the age of 8. After fully describing the occurences, the psychic declares that the activity is the work of demons and states that demons are not his field of expertise. He does refer the couple to a demonologist prior to making his exit.
During his visit, the psychic informed the couple that demons become stronger with negativity. Only a couple of minutes later into the movie, Katie and Micah have their first disagreement with each other in which it is clear that they are not joking around. As the paranormal activity throughout this movie becomes more violent, so does their relationship become more negative and troubled.
Micah and Katie work together pretty well with dry banter that seems natural and unscripted. There are regular moments throughout the movie that will give viewers an occasional chuckle. This is definitely one of the highlights of the movie as it keeps the characters realistic, if not always believable.
Micah is not necessarily a credible character throughout the movie because he is very wishy-washy throughout the whole series of events in his attitude. At times, Micah will appear to be even more terrified than Katie and then, seconds later, will taunt the unknown force or forces with statements such as, “Is that all you got?” This bravado is demonstrated by Micah throughout the movie, particularly when the situation to the viewer is clearly out of his control, he still refuses to call the demonologist as he wants to deal with the situation himself.
Generally all that is expected from a female lead in a horror movie is that she be able to scream fairly well and act scared. This movie is no exception, not a whole lot was required from Katie Featherston and that is a standard she lived up to pretty well. Some credit should be given her for her natural delivery of dialogue and banter with co-star, Micah, but aside from that she didn’t really need to do anything impressive.
Ultimately, Peli chose to focus on the building-up aspect of horror films as there are only four or five major events (depending on what a person would consider major) that occur during the movie, and the couple is not even present during one of those events, though they see documentation of the event later. The first half of the movie, if not the first three-quarters of the movie mainly focus on the gradual increase in both the frequency and the substance of the activity that occurs which is meant to put the viewer on edge for what will happen to the couple later.
After the build-up is where the question of whether or not this is a great horror movie is answered, and that answer so far has been pretty close to down the middle. This gradual build-up is utilized by Peli in order to get the viewers attention and leave the viewer waiting for something major to happen. The reason this approach works on many people is because the mere psychological expectation of something major happening makes the actual occurrence seem all the more frightening. The viewers are literally left waiting, constantly, for something serious to happen, for the shit to hit the fan, so to speak and as the events in the movie are building-up to these events, so is the viewer psychologically building himself up in anticipation of the events.
One thing must be known for certain, the actual events and scenes in this movie, when taken by themselves, are almost not at all frightening. Peli’s idea behind creating this psychological build-up works for many viewers who have themselves built-up to the point that if someone taps them on the shoulder they may well have a heart attack. This constant psychological anticipation leaves the viewer in a position where something that would normally be merely mildly disturbing is immensely horrifying.
The fact of the matter is this cannot be expected to work on all viewers, and it doesn’t. For many viewers, this psychological anticipation will very rapidly give way to extreme boredom. Rather than eagerly anticipate when the major horrifying events will happen, the viewer becomes disinterested and apathetic instead. By the time the major events actually take place, (well into the movie) the level of anticipation for this sort of viewer has dropped to almost nothing and only one of these four-five major events will even give the viewer a minor startle. On a personal note, even that event didn’t do it for me.
Given Peli’s limited budget, the special effects border impressive. According to Micah Sloat:
“Every single thing you see in the movie with the exception of one shot is completely filmed on camera.” (1)
Unfortunately, that is given Peli’s limited budget for the movie. In reality, the special effects might have been impressive for a movie made in the 1980’s, but when one watches carefully enough, it is not difficult to determine the various ways that these special effects could have come to be. One positive about the special effects is Peli makes fantastic use of light and creates some really subtle effects with shadows.
Ultimately, whether or not a viewer will like this movie depends on two things:
1.) Can the viewer obtain a psychological high, and maintain that psychological high for the better part of an hour?
2.) Is the viewer fairly susceptible to horror films and horror effects, in general?
If the answer to one and not the other is yes, the film will probably be OK. If the answer to both questions is yes, the viewer will probably be scared out of his/her wits because Peli honestly does a tremndous job with building suspense. If the answer to both questions is no, then prepare to be disappointed as this movie will not live up to its hype at all.
Unfortunately, I am of the lattermost category of people, and I imagine all others who found this film dreadful are. I would take that into consideration if I were a complete rock when it comes to horror films, but I have been frightened (to an extent) by horror films before. The most recent example is 2006’s, The Abandoned, which is a must-watch for all fans of this genre.
In summation, it is clear why many viewers (particularly those more susceptible to frightening elements) would find this film to be quite scary, but there will likely be an equal number of people who are completely unmoved by it. I cannot in good conscience give this movie a high score because I am of the latter of the two groups and I was immensely bored with the whole thing. The only saving graces of this movie are the banter between the two main characters, the fact that the acting was decent overall and the more subtle theatrical elements employed by Peli. Unfortunately, as an untrained viewer, I should not be bored enough on the first go-around to notice all of the subtle theatrical elements, and yet, I did.
2.5 out of 10