Actividad paranormal

Katie and Micah move into their new home, but instead of domestic bliss, the couple share several sleepless nights, prompting them to set up cameras during the night. The nights become more and more eventful.

I didn't exactly fall in love with this film when it was first released, people were apparently collapsing with fear in the cinemas, I never bought that, I didn't find it scary, looking back, I find it original.

It always felt as though the found footage genre took off after, and because of this film, not my favourite type of film, but I can appreciate what went on behind the scenes here.

I actually think the followups did a better job with scares, they took it much further, but when it came to originality, this one is the winner.

Later films seem more scripted, and are definitely more heavily produced, this one feels a lot more raw, more naive in a way, that's where this film's charm comes from, that and the snappy running time.

7/10.

Paranormal Activity (R, 1:29) — Fantasy: Supernatural, bargain basement, original

"Significance" is one of several dimensions I use to categorize SF&F films. It refers to the amount of resources — writing, acting, sets, costumes, effects, promotion, etc. — thrown into any particular movie, and I drop things into 4 pigeonholes: biggie, 2nd string, 3rd string, and bargain basement.

Earlier this week I put The Age of Stupid into the last of these (movies that could have been made in somebody's basement), but Paranormal Activity is even basementier. In fact, compared to its siblings, The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield, it may be the basementiest feature film ever released. You could make 10 of these for what Transformers probably blew on latex alone.

But that brings us to the "bargain" part. Dollar for dollar, you get about a zillion times more entertainment out of Paranormal Activity than you do out of even good blockbusters like Iron Man, let alone such overblown, overfrenetic, overloud crap as Transformers.

The movie is set entirely in a single house and features only 2 actors, both nonentities, aside from fleeting appearances by a couple of equally unknown supporting actors. It's all filmed with a consumer video camera, and much of the film is devoted to what that camera, mounted on a tripod in the young couple's bedroom, captures on its ultra-low-light setting as they sleep each night away for 2 weeks in late 2006.

As we learn in the opening sequence, it's a pretty expensive camera, and Katie Featherston (playing a character of the same name) is fretting over the cost, but her boyfriend, Micah Sloat (ditto), assures her that he makes that much money in a single morning. It develops that she's an English-lit student and he's a day trader.

Of more interest is why they acquired this geeky gizmo. Katie's been haunted by strange apparitions at least since she was 8 years old, and at the beginning Micah is humoring her by indulging his penchant for guy toys with a view toward capturing some of her more recent paranormal visitations on audio and video. He's pretty skeptical, but soon enuf weird poltergeistic effects start showing up on tape, just tiny little things, but inexplicable, and gradually he dials down the scoffing and (honest, well earned) chuckles and starts thinking this is "cool" (and, we are left to infer, possibly profitable). Katie, meanwhile, gets increasingly jittery and frightened. Neither is sleeping well, and they start snapping at each other, followed by regrets and reassurances.

The dialog and performances are absolutely, totally, 100% realistic. Katie and Micah behave and talk exactly as you would expect of any happy young couple. Nothing is forced or artificial. The film completely avoids all horror-movie clichés. No cats jump at you out of the dark. Every time they flip a switch, the lights reliably come on. There are none of those cheap tricks where you see a character all alone in a wide-angle shot, then cut to a close-up as a hand appears out of nowhere from behind. In fact, almost all the shots are long, fixed- camera, wide-angle perspectives, and you can see exactly what's going on at all times (including the time stamp in the lower right corner).

All of which make this the kind of movie that I'm always hoping for — an original story, well told, effective, using believable characters and, at least in this case, not needing a huge budget to get the job done.

Since I saw it the same day as Pandorum (3), with its seizure-inducing stroboscopic credits, I must also say a good word about the closing credits for Paranormal Activity: 3 minutes of total black screen. True to the producers' conceit, they maintain the illusion of documentarihood to the very end.

Did the hype kill the movie? I watch a lot of horror movies and normally I would really have liked this one. In the endless stream of b-movies and even expensive crap, this movie really stands out. Paranormal Acivity is a scary and straightforward movie and it isn't boring. But of course there is the hype. After I heard this was the scariest movie ever, expectations evidently went up. Eventually resulting in a slight disappointment. This movie would have been much scarier, creepier if I hadn't had any expectations, if I hadn't read any reviews. I guess Public Enemy was right about the Hype.

The movie is scary indeed. After watching Paranormal Activity I noticed that the nightly sounds of my 200 years old house were louder and creepier than ever. But I did not let my good night's sleep for it.

The acting was good but sometimes slightly overdone, which made it difficult for me to connect with the characters. I understand that Micah, the bf, had to be annoying, the character was written that way. But their is something wrong if you start imagining in the middle of the movie gruesome ways he could die. The movie should have been scarier if I had had more empathy for the characters.

Anayway I enjoyed watching this film, but the hype made me expect more.

I watched this movie in the cinemas since i wanted the full effect and to be horrified like never before as the youtubevideos suggests. The movie was so hyped i hoped it to be that scary movie I've been waiting for since my experience with Rec.

The setup is a house, two people in it and a camera. Starts off promising with fairly good acting. It almost seems they are a couple in real life, that would be my guess. Micah(Micah) does what you would expect from a boyfriend after his girlfriend tells him she hears noises and sees things after midnight - he sets up a camera in the house and starts taunting. As texts in the middle of the screen shows the process, day1..day12 etc. things escalates from day to day. People in the audience are getting nervous and i feel the tension rising and building up my expectations. However the movie is never really kicking off and nothing is ever happening, its like Scream without the guy with the knife. Its like your lover giving you a lapdance and leaving in the middle of the show. Its like i pay 15bucks to get scared but i get angry instead. The whole movie felt like the first 30 minutes of a good horror movie, then all the sudden texts start running down the screen and the cinema is lit up - the movie is actually ending after 30 min? oh well my clock tells me I've been sitting here for 1½ hours.

Taking the budget into consideration i would say its a great horror movie. I guess i was just expecting something more frightening. Want to know how the audience was reacting? They reacted like me, laughing and complaining when walking out.

I could almost promise you the hype is mostly made up and the videos you can watch online are promotion and bullshit. I cant imagine anyone leaving the cinema or getting freaked out. OK, maybe if they are bored and leave or angry and freaked out.

A couple decide to document their nights while they sleep, after they hear strange noises that they believe to be a haunting.

I respect this film, for the fact that it was shot for less than 20,000, had absolutely no marketing campaign and has become a huge success based on word of mouth and the audience demanding to see it. If only other studios would follow suit and listen to people demanding to see movies they want to see, maybe there wouldn't be so much crap out there.

Paranormal Activity is shot like Cloverfield, Blair Witch Project, REC, Cannibal Holocaust, etc. If any of those films gave you motion sickness, you might want to skip this one. Half the film is shot while they sleep, so the film is on a tri-pod, the other half is them walking around with it. So if you've never been a fan of those films, skip this one. Second, the film is not as scary as people make it out to be. Instead, it is one creepy and suspenseful film, that seeing in a theatre, only heightened my enjoyment of it.

The audience I went with, all had a collective "Oh My God". I could hear it every time something creepy happened. You could literally feel everyone in the theatre holding their breath every time they went to sleep. Again, if you are the type of person who wants to watch a film and not hear a peep out of anyone else, skip this film.

Now the film itself, shot in one week, small (very small) budget and every penny of it went towards the special effects. The special effects are what sell the film, if you don't buy them, the film will not creep you out. They looked real and impressive enough to push the film into a successful goal, which is to scare people. If you are already afraid of the dark, this film will not help you. Every creek, thump, noise you hear in your house will now have you thinking twice.

Less is more, The Blair Witch Project uses this, as does Paranormal Activity. The two leads, are haunted by a demon, one we never see, only hear. Whenever you go into a horror film, as a kid you would close your eyes in fear. Big mistake, because it's the ears you need to be covering. The sound is what makes you jump, hear nothing, fear nothing. The sound design behind this film is what is scary people, accompanied by the visuals (memorable scenes with the powder and bed sheets).

As the film progresses, the haunting gets worse. I don't want to give anything away, and I urge you to not watch the trailer. I watched the trailer and was waiting for those things to happen, it took away from the general fear. Not knowing what to expect will make this film that much better, that much creepier and that much more entertaining. I didn't expect it to be as funny as it was either, the lead male had some comic relief dialogue, the ease the tension.

The couple are believable, the hand held camera angle works here and the fear will set in. I applaud Paranormal Activity, for not only becoming an unheard of success, but for being one of the creepiest films I've ever seen.

Bravo.