Reviews
Paranormal Activity
November 25 2009
Oren Peli
Starring Katie Featherston, Micah Sloat, Mark Fredrichs.
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“Don’t see it alone.” So warns the ominous tagline footnoting the advertising campaign that has saturated the UK over the past few weeks. Even if you know nothing about Paranormal Activity, chances are you will have heard the name, seen the posters and even fed the hype. But does this modest US production deliver where so many hotly billed horrors fall short? Maybe, but don’t get set for any sleepless nights just yet.
Filmed over seven days and nights in writer/director Oren Peli’s suburban San Diego home in 2006, Paranormal Activity follows a young couple, Katie and Micah, as they attempt to document the distressing disturbances that have begun to disrupt their lives. Against his partner’s wishes, Micah purchases some high-spec recording equipment with the hope of capturing the supposed specter. Each night he sets the tape, settles down, and leaves the audience to gaze helplessly on as the ill-intent guest goes about unsettling the couple’s sanctum. As the intrusions worsen the pair’s relationship begins to take the strain; their escalating stress echoing the audiences increasing unease.
Regularly interspersing the unexplained early hour goings on with the sanctuary of daylight, however, the film fails to really drive home its own deftly built tension, allowing the audience to adjust to a rather routine narrative. Rhythmically restoring a sense of equilibrium may well deliver some much needed respite, but somehow the film’s climax feels premature, arriving just when things start getting going at a more agitating pace. Still, with the film leaving the whisper of a sequel in its wake, perhaps Peli is right to leave his audience squirming for more.
Parallels will inevitably be drawn between Paranormal Activity and The Blair Witch Project, which is unavoidable given the narrative similarities and ultra-low budget style shared by both and so sharply initiated by the latter. That nightmare inducing pop culture phenomenon has been gestating for 10 years and it is remarkable that it has taken so long for a film to be rightly held under the same quivering light (2008’s Cloverfield and Quarantine are two noteworthy contenders, although neither is as comparatively effective on such a primal level of human fear).
Flash forward from the frenzy of 1999 and cinemagoers have become hardened, more desensitised even, to the affects of shaky-cam aesthetics. In aiming to upset the sanctity of sleep, perhaps Paranormal Activity has simply set its sights too high. While terrifying in places, it is ultimately still someway behind matching the impact of The Blair Witch Project (seriously, who goes into the woods at night anymore?).
Still, the bandwagon having since rolled on to newer pastures, Paranormal Activity deserves more than to be pigeonholed. Nor should it be written off as just another opportunistic cash-in. In fact, it is commendable for setting itself apart from recent genre trends; where so many films look to conform to the tasteless torture porn trash that has become something of a mainstay of modern horror filmmaking. This is still postmodern horror, but if nothing else Paranormal Activity proves that you don’t need buckets of gore and a tacked on twist to send chills racing down audience spines.
Anticipation:
Enjoyment:
In Retrospect:
"where so many films look to conform to the tasteless torture porn trash that has become something of a mainstay of modern horror filmmaking. This is still postmodern horror, but if nothing else Paranormal Activity proves that you don’t need buckets of gore and a tacked on twist to send chills racing down audience spines"
- Hear hear!
I haven't seen it. Not sure I'm going to.
I thought 'REC' (the original Spanish film that 'Quarentine' was based on) was the best of the shakey-hand-held films.
Written by Sophie Playle on November 24th, 2009 at 18:41
But Paranormal Activity does have 'a tacked on twist' – in the sense that the ending in the film's theatrical version is shockingly unexpected, and is in fact an alternative ending (suggested by one Steven Spielberg) that replaces Oren Peli's originally shot ending. I'm not suggesting that the ending, as it stands, is unsuccessful (on the contrary) – but it is, surely, the very definition of 'tacked on'.
At the screening I saw of this at the FrightFest Halloween all-nighter, you could hear people in the audience literally pleading with the screen in front of them: "Don't go in there!", "don't do that!", etc. I reckon that, far more than any hype, illustrates why this film is doing so well. I've never seen anything quite like it (the audience response, I mean, not the film itself, which is really just a series of well-managed but familiar haunted house 'boo!' moments). Personally, though, I thought that the daytime banter between the two principal charcaters was absolutely essential for the film's building of tension.
Written by Anton Bitel on November 24th, 2009 at 18:57
I haven't seen [REC]/Quaretine, but I did catch Blair Witch and Paranormal Activity in theaters. While I certainly found myself leaning in to see what might be lurking in the shadows during the long bedroom shots, I also nervously slouched so far down in my seat during the tense scenes that I thought I was going to slide out of it. I was definitely invested in the film while watching it, but the end did come a bit too abruptly for my taste. Compared to the Blair Witch Project, I'd say the only real difference is the dedication to the characters. The couple in P. A. seemed forced at times, especially during arguments.
Written by Marc Hobelman on November 24th, 2009 at 20:05
Very much looking forward to seeing this.
[REC] was probably the best cinema experience I've ever had. Approaching the end (attic) scene the vast majority of the audience were reduced to hysterical nervous laughter, all very aware that we were about to be really fucking scared and there was nothing we could do about it.
Written by @lukerichards88 on November 26th, 2009 at 12:04
Good review, Adam. I actually did see this alone, and was rather disappointed not to have been more scared by it. My problem was the film showed and explained rather too much about what is haunting Katie and Micah. The real power of the Blair Witch Project, which I still rank as one of the scariest films I've ever seen, is that so much of it is left to your imagination. In comparison, Paranormal Activity filled in too many blanks.
Written by Dan Stewart on November 30th, 2009 at 04:45
It's true: there's nought more frightening than ambiguity. Still, there were quite a lot of blanks until the very end. It would have been better without the overexplicitness of the ouija scene, arguably – but that scene, like so many others, was most interesting not for its paranormal activity so much as for the cracks that it exposed in Katie and Micah's relationship. Abstract away from the film's demonic core, keep the devil, so to speak, from the door, and you could still have here a psychological thriller whose events run a broadly similar course. Perhaps the film's final scene only shows a character giving full expression to an aggressively violent tendency that one suspects may have been there all along, waiting not so much to be let in as to get out. Perhaps the only thing 'possessed' is the camera…
I think the film's biggest failing, though, is that it is not actually about all that much. It is the very definition of a roller coaster ride – or a ghost train.
Written by Anton Bitel on November 30th, 2009 at 10:35