Paranormal Activity

Before the release of PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, this decade's horror films had offered us tons of blood and guts, but not so much in the way of scares. Don't get me wrong; gory films can be entertaining, but it just shocks me that a genre whose ostensible purpose is to scare has been more inclined towards grossing people out. I guess the majority of people get more of a thrill being grossed out than being terrified while on the edge of their seats. Not me. I was incredibly excited when I heard about PARANORMAL ACTIVITY. The premise is EXACTLY what I had often thought of as something that would be a fantastic idea for a truly frightening piece of cinema. While this film doesn't meet those expectations to the fullest and it doesn't revolutionize the horror genre either, the mere fact that something has been given to those of us who prefer subtle scares over gore can't go unappreciated. In 1999, we got the severely underrated THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (which is tied with 1978's HALLOWEEN as my favorite horror film of all time), which used the same "fake documentary" approach that we get with PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, and while the latter film isn't as great as the former one, there's no doubt that it's often a very creepy piece of filmmaking.

Katie (Katie Featherston) is a college student who lives in a nice house with her boyfriend Micah (Micah Sloat). She thinks that she's been haunted by "something" since her childhood, as she's heard weird noises while she sleeps at night. However, since these weird things have only happened while she sleeps, she's never gotten much confirmation of what they are, or if maybe she's just having nightmares. This changes when Micah buys a video camera and leaves it on while the couple sleeps. The film lets us watch and hear through the lens of the camera while Katie and Micah are asleep, and we see a clock on the bottom of the screen which indicates the time. The weird noises come during the wee hours of the morning.

Katie and Micah start reviewing the tapes and realize that Katie's suspicions weren't nightmares at all. Katie's very scared, especially since she has felt that this is something that has been following her during her whole life. Micah's reaction is another story, though. He's your typical "guy's guy," who is not so much concerned about whether something dangerous is happening, but rather, he's more excited about capturing all this "awesome stuff" on camera. When a psychic visits to try to help them, Micah even asks "Is there something we can do to, like, make the stuff happen, so we can get it on tape?" But there's even worse news... the decision to have the camera record the evening's events apparently makes this "thing" become even more persistent, and so, the noises at night start to get worse and worse. Katie just gets even more apprehensive, while Micah (true to the tough guy persona) starts challenging this ghost/demon/whatever to come out and face him.

As scary as the evening scenes are, and as effective as the noises are at making the fear sometimes unbearable, the best aspect of PARANORMAL ACTIVITY involves an instance mid-way through the film when Katie gets up from the bed late at night, then stands there staring at Micah for almost two hours, while facing away from us. Like BLAIR WITCH, this film obviously recognizes the great success that can be had with NOT showing the scary things and just letting your imagination make you fear the worst, and as much as the steps and the creaking noises do a fantastic job at this, I was even more scared by the idea of not being able to see Katie's face during this particular moment and having no idea what was about to happen. Even better, there's a sort-of repetition of this instance towards the film's climax, which is more than intense.

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY does make a quasi mistake, and it's a mistake that I had been fearing it would make weeks before I watched the film, when I saw what its title was. The film has more dialogue aimed at explaining the "paranormal phenomena" than it should. The scene during which the psychic first visits the house is, on the one hand, good in that it helps to establish the background of Katie's past and gives us tidbits on Katie and Micah's relationship, but on the other hand, the psychic's visit eventually descends into supernatural psychobabble that is unnecessary: when a horror movie opts for the approach of NOT "showing" the scary things, it should also try to do as little explaining as possible. It makes it more mysterious, and therefore, scarier. It's more effective to allow the viewers to witness these strange events without giving them much information, so that they'll feel in constant suspense as to what is happening.

What keeps PARANORMAL ACTIVITY from reaching the greatness of BLAIR WITCH is the fact that the sense of realism in the latter film is NEVER absent, largely because you believe that those characters are actually TRAPPED in the woods and have no way of getting out. While PARANORMAL ACTIVITY is filmed entirely inside the house, one doesn't necessarily feel like this couple is "trapped" in the house, because they could easily leave the house whenever they want. Yes, the film explains that this thing supposedly haunts Katie wherever she goes, but it may have been a good idea to SHOW us that: have Katie and Micah stay the night at a friends's house or a hotel, and have the same things happen during the night. Granted, you could argue that this is forgivable, given the fact that the movie was filmed on a meager budget, which probably means that they wouldn't have been able to afford a different set.

There's no doubt that this is a fantastic gift for those of us who've been waiting for a film like this. With only two months left in this decade, we finally got a horror movie that didn't feel the need to drench its reels with blood (last year's THE STRANGERS had the potential to accomplish this, but then things went horribly awry during its last act). Considering its premise, PARANORMAL ACTIVITY could've been absolutely frightening. It doesn't quite get there. It settles for just being very creepy... but that's something that I welcome heartily, seeing as the genre has been in such a hopeless state lately. It had been years since I had thought twice about turning the light off before going to bed.

7/10