Paranormal Activity might as well be a cardboard cut-out of the much better, much more influential, much more groundbreaking horror masterpiece The Blair Witch Project. Whereas that is in fact the most important statement about Paranormal Activity, I feel compelled to elaborate.
A modern-day couple decides to purchase a video camera in order to capture the night happenings of a ghost thought to possess their home. After evidence is apparent they briefly consult a flighty psychic and on his advise, they stay put in the house (supposingly the entity will follow them anyway). So like any curious couple they continue to stroke their own paranoia and provoke the entity with nightly video recordings. Yep, that's about it.
The story is so bare bones that you wonder how it was possible to misstep the opportunity to delve deeper into Katie Featherston's past. The film briefly touches on the demon entity taunting her at a young age, starting a house fire, etc. The film explains nothing and holds no drama for its characters. Why not concentrate on the paranoia of demonology and the occult? Instead the film edges around religion. I'm sorry. I do realize we now live in a world where it's easier to ignore spirituality, but when you consider ghosts or demons of any kind in a story... you have also inadvertently created a God... therefore you almost automatically have to touch the theme of religion. Good and evil. There is a dividing line. If you bring up Ouija boards or the occult as a negative scare tactic, then the counter is religion or spirituality as a means of possible security. Focusing on this theme is exactly why Rosemary's Baby and The Exorcist remain so very effective. Both films were fearless in touching the subject.
Paranormal Activity is just bland and curiously not scary. Expecting suspense and a mammoth amount of ghost activity? Think again. There is a single unmemorable camera set-up by the bed and hardly anything happens. The rest of the time the couple runs around with the camera shouting the same things, investigating the same things, discussing the same things and bickering daily. There is no build. The film even has the gall to list each "night" as if that will fool us into being engrossed. Not on my watch. As a side note, Steven Spielberg apparently recommended a new ending in an attempt to tie everything together. Director Oren Peli listened and without the current ending, this film would have tanked on all levels.
The Blair Witch Project was in a word iconic. It without a shadow of a doubt laid the path for this pathetic excuse for a bargain basement money-maker and it should be well noted as such. Perhaps the most daunting aspect of Paranormal Activity is that it originally attempted to make us believe this was actually caught on video. But with its unbelievability both in acting (Micah Sloat is particularly annoying) and story, other marketing gimmicks were targeted. Such as a slow build theatrical release, which caused Halloween audiences to flock to this low budget sleeper. In comparison however, The Blair Witch Project will surely stands the test of time. It is after-all a truly scary, real feeling thriller and should be revisited as a curious piece of film art if nothing else.
Paranormal Activity is fool's gold. It doesn't psychologically play with the mind like really great horror films should, it falls on the same level as any ho-hum ghost show episode on cable. If you're hankering for a really great ghost story try out The Haunting (1963) or the remarkable film The Innocents (1961). Both are terrifying and put the likes of anything ghostly now days to a bitter shame, especially where Paranormal Activity is concerned. Seriously, don't waste your time and patience on this clunker.
GRADE: D+
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