Paranormal Activity

So my theater finally was able to get Paranormal Activity in after much demand. I’ve been waiting to see this since I first heard about it almost a year ago it seems. The film is basically about a couple’s attempts to record the strange actions that have been occurring throughout their house at night. They are hoping that they will be able to explain away some of it so that they can fix it and sleep soundly. Unfortunately, I can’t really go into too much about the events that happen in the film without spoiling anything. What I will say is that the film just has this atmosphere about it. It manages to turn the most simple things into moments of utter terror. It captures the feeling of being utterly helpless by corrupting what would normally be our safest haven.

One of the other great elements of this film is the fact that the Horror happens to normal people. I’m honestly so sick of films that label themselves as horror when you end up wanting the cast to die because they are just terrible people. The “heroes” of those films are the most slimy, disgusting, wretched forms of human life and you are happy when the killer gets them. How did this become the main point? The reason Friday the 13th did it is because it was the point of the plot. Friday the 13th was a revenge film against the promiscuous teenagers who let him drown. True horror needs to happen to good people who don’t deserve it. This makes the dark elements that much more horrifying. It really comes out in this film because you really care for the two main characters of Kate and Micah.

I highly HIGHLY recommend seeing this film in theaters instead of waiting for it to come out on DVD. Half the enjoyment of the film is the audience itself I found. Throughout the film you would hear just utter silence because it’s such an engrossing movie. Anytime something would happen you would hear gasps and then people would laugh at their reactions at first, but by the second half of the movie no one was laughing. When you see any other horror movie you rarely have the audience actually crying out in shock or awe from the killers or what will be. By the end of this film just about the entire audience was just screaming in unison at certain moments.

I just want to go on record and say I HATE the comparisons to the Blair Witch Project. Just because the film is in the horror genre and uses a hand held/tripod mounted camera does not make them comparable. That’s like comparing Star Wars to Independence Day because they are both Sci-Fi films with flying dogfights.

End Note: Go see this film, don’t read a synopsis, and enjoy it. I didn’t post a trailer because you should really see this film completely blind going into it.