Paranormal Activity

[Kenneth M. Lin]

One audience said it very well when the movie was finished: "I paid ten
bucks for this?"

The movie didn't even try to pretend that what's being filmed is real. A
girl moves in with her boyfriend and somehow brough along an "entity" from
her childhood. The boyfriend wants to keep the video camera going 24/7 out
of curiosity. The casts concist of these two, a friend of the girl, and
some sort of spiritualist dude that can sense something isn't all right.
Great premise and they could have done so much with it and stay within their
meager budget but the rest of movie consists of

1. Infrared footage of the couple sleeping while something unseen lurking
around the house.
2. The couple reviews the footage in the morning.
3. The girl freaks out.
4. The boyfriend makes a joke of it.
5. Rinse and repeat.

I realize that they want to gradually increase the "paranormal activities"
to increase the suspense but it gets really old. The girl claims to be
scared shitless yet kept sleeping on the side of the bed closest to the door
and, gasp, leaves the door wide open.

I gotta admit that Paramount did a superb job of marketing this home movie
because they managed to talk everyone and their uncle into rushing to the
theater. They did almost $50,000 per screen the first weekend and the next
weekend it was still $25,000 per with wide release. Now that everyone
realizes that they have been had, I doubt this movie has much leg left.

I definitely wouldn't want to see this on DVD because picture quality was so
poor that I doubt I'd spot some of the paranormal happenings. on a
television set And yet I feel cheated for paying full admission. The
problem with this movie is that it doesn't have enough going on and the
pacing is slow as hell. The characters are unlikable and their behaviors
are unconvincing.

I thought Quarantine did infinitely better job of documentary horror. This
movie also borrows heavily from Exorcist and Poltergeist and it just felt
unoriginal. All I can say is that if this really happens to me, I'd get
some roommates or sleep during the day and hang out with a crowd at night.
I also hate it when the "entity" never states its intention. It feels more
like harrassing than scaring.

Go see Zombieland again if you have craving for something scary.