"What the fuck!" - Majority of Paranormal Activity dialogue
Okay I went into this movie with few expectations. I expected it to make me jump, and it did. I did not expect it to frighten me or interest me, but it did. Paranormal Activity follows the trend of horror viewed realistically through a home camera, where the characters are filming the strange goings on. This of course takes more from 1999's Blair Witch Project more than 2007's action thriller Cloverfield, both movies I totally dig.
What is Paranormal Activity about? It is about paranormal activity. Okay to give you a premise, the movie opens as Micah gets the hang of a new video camera so that he can document the supernatural occurances surrounding his girlfriend Katie, who has been experiening them since she was a little girl. They set up the camera in their room so that they can record whatever ghostly visitors or events show up in their room. And do strange things happen? Hell yes. It gets freaky and unsettling. The fact that you can't see whatever it is that is doing these things makes it even scarier, you just see what it is doing and what it's doing to the girl. Instead of movie full of bad: bad acting, bad screenplay, bad direction, bad everything, we get a movie that is good in almost all of its aspects. The actors movie who play the couple are pretty good and seemed plausible enough, not as well as the Blair Witch bunch but they did well. The girl plays a real bright personalitied and eversweet girl who had the bad luck of becoming the brutalized ragdoll of some cruel demon. Did I say hot? Because she is. I know it's kind of a given in modern horror movies these days, but she isn't a skinny as shit beach blonde honey straight off the set of Sorority Row. She is a realistic kind of hot, the kind of good looking girl a sad bastard like me would hope to bag. And the guy was great. His character is just hysterical. Sure he went from being a not so serious kind of a douche to an understanding guardian again and again. But I thought he was just funny. I think his dialogue could be summed up like this "What the fuck was that?", "Whose there?", and "Is that all you got? Come out, bitch!" The humour is probably unintentional, but it's still humour. That's good, I don't like horror movies totally grim.
Now part of my criticism before seeing this movie was that the critics and filmgoer reactions to it, some of them were calling this movie the scariest movie ever. Let it be said this movie is scary, it is jumpy, it is creepy and disturbing but it is no way shape or form THE scariest movie ever. Plus part of the marketing for Paranormal Activity involved the trailers being partly scenes from the movie itself that provide you with the basics and of course most of the scares. The other half is audience reactions in the screenings. In the trailer, whenever there was a loud noise, a bunch of younger people jump in their seats and hold their hands over their mouthes in terror. Let it be said these kids, clad in hoodies (hoods up in the theatre), are probably easily scared and their idea of intense reality TV is Ghost Hunters. Now one could argue that Paranormal Activity itself is Ghost Hunters The Movie. It's not Ghost Hunters. It's Ghost Hunters done right. Here we have a clear view (really clear due to invisibility) of what is happening whereas in Ghost Hunters you hear the floor creak in the dark and it's supernatural. Sorry, I just think Ghost Hunters is retarded.
Moving on, there are few movies in which I get back from it and I say that I was on the edge of my seat. I'm relaxed when I'm watching movies, especially action movies, I can have the most gargantuan Michael Bay EXPLOSIONS Boeing Jet my eyes and Ride of the Valkries destroying my ear drums and think I was in a peaceful meadow. But that's just me, you know. Yet this movie had me on the edge. Partially because I was really into it, but basically because I'm looking at the screen with my expressions changing like this: "W. T. F. Wait what! How the fu-Holy shit! What!" And that is a good feeling when watching a horror film. When you're not quite sure what the movie's doing to you as well as the characters, you're in suspense and I love suspense like I love vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup. I don't fuck around when it comes to vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup.
I will leave off by saying that to me Paranormal Activity was a very entertaining horror film. Now this type of horror may not appeal to some people, but those are people who can't stand scary movies without needlessly excessive gore, done to death stories, bad actors, and plenty of T&A. They are people whose idea of horror is distorted and think the real scares are shit. They are the people who would rather see Saw VI. Their loss. I'm not Your Modest Guru for nothing. Go see this film and come home and be afraid to get in bed or turn off the lights or walk through your house or have a girlfriend. You'll thank me for it later.
This has been a horrificly structured movie review from Your Modest Guru. Thanks for reading.
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