Paranormal Boredom

In 1999 "The Blair Witch Project" defined the "reality/horror" genre employing the use of shaky camera movements and home video styled visuals to ingrain in the viewer a sense that what they were watching actually happened. At the time it was hailed as one of the scariest movies of all time, or at least of my generation. Since then movies such as "Cloverfield" have improved on the genre, while others such as "Quarantine" have failed with it. Paranormal Activity falls somewhere in between the two, mimicking blair witch's style more than trying to improve on it, but with very limited success.

The premise is pretty simple, a couple, Katie And Mica, have just moved in together and have been hearing weird noises in the house late at night. In an attempt to figure out what the noises are and where they are coming from Mica begins videotaping everything, following Katie through the house during the day and setting it up on a tripod at night while they sleep. They are told by a psychic that the house is not possessed, but that Katie is actually the one who is possessed, by what he suspects to be a big old, noise making demon. Unfortunately for the viewer, for the majority of the movie, that is all the demon does, make noise. Not only that but in order to hear these spooky noises the audience is forced to sit through what seems like hours of Mica being a douche behind the camera during the day which gets old and boring quick.

While most horror movies nowadays rely on gore and loud noises to provide scares, the reality horror genre relies solely on anticipation. Cloverfield provided this in excess with a constantly looming threat from which the protagonist and friends are constantly running from. Pair this with some of the best faux amateur camerawork in a movie to date and what you end up with is a very successful movie. The camerawork and visuals in Paranormal Activity are good, not great but good. Cloverfield provided us with amateur looking camerawork and visuals that still somehow managed to look amazing. Paranormal activity provides us with amateur looking camerawork and visuals that resemble a low budget porn more than a professionally made movie. The visuals do however work in portraying a sense of "reality" throughout the movie adding to the general eeriness and fright. My biggest gripe with Paranormal Activity is with the lack of anticipation. First off since the demon only haunts the couple at night we are never faced with the fear that something is going to happen during the day, for which half of the movie takes place . Add that to the fact that for the first five nights all we see and hear are some unknown creaks eminating from the house, and what you have is a movie that would have been more exciting to sleep through the majority of than watch.

Paranormal Activity is one of those movies you come across that has a vast amount of unrealized potential. It's frustrating to watch a horror movie that is done properly techincally, but falls short on scares simply because they were not written into the script. Had the anticipation existed throughout the entirety of the movie my bed may have been a little wetter the following morning.

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5 out of 10