Review: Paranormal Activity

Yesterday evening, Mr & Mrs Stevens and I ventured to the cinema to see the much hyped ‘Paranormal Activity’, a film that has been on my radar for some time. Writing a review with a hangover is perhaps not the best idea, but as I have an hour to kill…

‘Paranormal Activity’ has been referred to as ‘The next Blair Witch’ by a number of people, namely Eduardo Sanchez, the director of Blair, and it is certainly a valid argument; it cost approximately $15,000 to make ($20k less than Blair) and by the end of this weekend is expected to have grossed over $150,000,000 globally. It certainly is to the current generation of teenagers what Blair was to me back in the day

The film starts with an introduction to the two main characters (out of a cast of four) and their surroundings. Micah (a daytrader on the stock markets) and Katie (who we presume is involved in handcrafted jewellery) live in Micah’s well-sized three bedroom house. It is worth noting that the house in question is that of the films director, which is a clever cost-cutting exercise on his part.

Micah is a home video enthusiast and everything you see in the film is through the lens of that camera; Blair and Cloverfield fans will enjoy that aspect of it. Right from the start of the film the audience is made aware that Katie is having difficulties as she believes that something is in the house with them. Therefore Micah plans to use the equipment at his disposal to try and obtain visual evidence of this alleged paranormal activity.

The banter between the couple living together is good, and is an authentic portrayal of a real couple. Micah is a sarcastic, wisecracking boyfriend who is sceptical of the claims Katie is making and the first half hour of the film is almost entirely devoted to the characters. Some of you may see it as a slow starter, but bear with it.

From this point on things slowly begin to transpire in the bedroom and elsewhere in the house. The events are presented to the audience by way of the camera mounted on a tripod in their bedroom, which allows you to see them sleeping as well as seeing into the landing through the open bedroom door. This door is of particular importance, as it is is crucial to some of the paranormal set-pieces and is indicative of the way in which the director has approached creating tension amongst the audience. Would you sleep with the door open?

The highlights of each evening are shown, often including fast forwarding to skip through the footage. These events are then followed by the reaction of the couple the following day and their subsequent discussions, arguments etc.

After several nights ‘activity’, Katie decides to call a parapsychologist who duely turns up at the house and attempts to find out what the history of the phenomenon is. It turns out that Katie has had these problems for many, many years (an important plot point that gets explored further) and is referred to a demonologist who is apparently a more appropriate person to tackle the problem of hostile spooks. The couple decide to wait a while before making that call and continue their nightly recording.

What transpires from this point on is what I’ll refer to as a classic Blair Witch approach; psychological strain complete with in-fighting and bickering between the couple which is fuelled further by the increasingly worrying behaviour of the resident ‘demon’. It’s hard to write about the film from this point on without giving too much away, but the script is superb and the way in which the couple are terrorised works very well.

After discovering that the demonologist is out of town for a few days -Katie is in need of his help as she is emotionally exhausted- the couple try and get through the last few evenings. This period is the climax of the film and is handled SUPERBLY. Yes, capitals!

In regards to the way in which the film attempts to unsettle and scare the audience, I have nothing but praise for its simple, no budget approach which clearly worked judging by the responses in the cinema. There is only one computer enhanced scene in the whole film!

Many of you will be wondering just how scary it is/was. Well quite frankly, coming from someone who isn’t scared all that easily, I found the film to be wonderfully tense and gripping, but was only genuinely jump-out-of-my-seat scared during the last 15 minutes. However, the audience in the cinema we were at could be seen to be jumping all over the place; we’re all different.

To summarise, this is quite simply the best independently made ’spooky’ film I’ve seen since Blair, and although it may not scare everyone to death for the whole duration, it will pull you in and leave you wishing the director had shot another week of paranormal activity for the couple to endure. A solid, great value for money popcorn fest.

Go and see the bloody film!