Paranormal Activity [DVD]

This is definitely the type of film you watch alone, at night and in the dark. Made me jump a lot and I wanted it continue.

One point to mention though, I highly, highly recommend watching with the theatrical ending first, not the alternative.

I like this film. Sure, it delivers scares, but I enjoyed other elements of this film besides all the 'paranormal activity'. What I really loved was the home life.

I thought the actors were great and it really did feel real. For once this was a 'found footage film' that made me feel like I really was genuinely watching someone's home movies. The couple seemed very real and natural together and the voyeur in me really enjoyed watching their home life, complete with goofy husband jokes - which were, as always, insensitive and inappropriate. Being a guy I could really relate to this, and loved his humour and recognised dynamics between the pair.

I thought this film was really quite clever. It's always refreshing seeing low budget films that become successes. They nearly always offer something new, for the simple reason that a lack of money forces directors & crew to come up with new, inventive and imaginative ways to solve problems or create effects when they can't just throw money at the problem. In short, it stops film makers being lazy and boost originality and creativity. Paranormal Activity is a perfect example of this.

The jumps, scares and horror, weren't/wasn't relentless, but the film certainly had its moments, with 1 or 2 scenes - actually make that 3 or 4 - being genuinely creepy and sending shivers up my spine. Only one scene really made me jump out my seat, but the rest, as I said, certainly had the shiver factor.

They're making a Paranormal Activity 2 now, in fact I think it's out soon, and it will really interesting to see what's that like and how they approach that. I'm really not sure what type of film it will be, but I hope it's on a par with this. Both my flat mate and I really enjoyed it and Dave - my 6''2' Geordie flat mate - even had nightmares the following night. But then again the film really did seem to freak him out for some reason.

I'd give this an 8 out of 10 as a film to watch, but a 9 our of 10 as an example of good film making.

Count me among those who consider Paranormal Activity a brilliant scary movie. I can understand some people not liking the movie, but I don't see how anyone can get off saying there's no suspense or frightening material to be found here - methinks some just stop watching it within the first half hour and draw their opinions from that. Paranormal Activity is the Blair Witch Project of the early twenty-first century, maintaining a large degree of realism and constructing its scares on what the audience doesn't see. As H.P. Lovecraft once said, "The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is Fear of the Unknown." Once you see the proverbial monster - no matter how frightening it might be - the fear level goes down because you know what you're dealing with. When you're threatened by the unknown, your imagination runs wild, flooding your system with more and more fear as the situation persists. Great horror writers know that less is more, and Paranormal Activity demonstrates this concept exceedingly well.

The story is actually pretty simple here. Katie (Katie Featherston) and her boyfriend Micah (Micah Sloat) are experiencing an escalating series of mysterious night-time frights (bangs, whispered voices, etc.). This type of haunting activity is no stranger to Katie, as she has experienced similar "hauntings" on and off since the age of eight. For poor dumb Micah, it's essentially an exciting game that he is all too eager to play. That is why he goes out and buys a video camera and recording equipment, hoping to catch some of the weird activity on film. While he may claim to believe his girlfriend in the beginning, he doesn't share or appreciate Katie's fears until events begin to spin out of control. This makes for an increasing amount of tension in the couple's lives, and that only adds to the atmosphere engendered by the paranormal events themselves. Micah and Katie do make for a believable couple, especially in their increasingly emotional reactions to one another. Ever the man, Micah dismisses the idea of ghosts or demons, treats the psychic Katie calls in with disdain, and insists over and over again that it is his house and that he will take care of the problem - despite the obvious fact that he has no idea what to do and that, in fact, everything he tries only makes the problem worse. Truth be told, Micah can be a real jerk at times.

The special effects are very low key yet effective. I think even the "this film wasn't scary" crowd would be a tad unnerved if they caught evidence of lights going off and on and doors moving by themselves in their very own homes - let alone saw and heard the things Katie and Micah go on to experience during their increasingly chaotic nights. Even the more elaborate effects toward the end look real using the home video camera technology this film employs to tell the entire story. It is astounding, given the film's fifteen thousand dollar budget. That's right - for less than the price of a new car, newcomer writer/director Oren Peli made a film that grossed well over one hundred million dollars. Obviously, he had to be doing something right here, and what he was doing was making one of the most surprisingly effective horror films to come along in years. I've seen Paranormal Activity numerous times already, and I'm more impressed each time I watch it.