Paranormal Activites; a "paranormal" review.

Fun fact; Normal means average, bland. The everyday, stuff that happens to all of us. Para means heightened, an extended, almost exaggurated level of something. It's a prefix to other words. Somehow, the supremely normal creates the abnormal. Funny that. Anyway. Having seen Paranormal activites now, I can safely say this to any who are still on the fence about seeing it. Go ahead, if a group of your friends feel are heading out, feel confident to accompany them. Doesn't matter if you can't deal with horror well or anything, this won't bother you beyond occassional jumps in your chair. See, when you watch this with other people, the tension gets all mucked up, and it turns from supposedly "gut wrenching horror" to "delightful comedy".

Paranormal Activities may be a low budget film, but you don't really notice it. The movie isn't relying on CGI special effects to get its scare across, instead using a slowly raised level of anxiety for the characters, as well as increasing amounts of "spooky" occurances to freak the audience out for it's big finish. However, the climax is very little, and far to late in the game. It comes in about three minutes before the credit's to, and avoiding spoilers, involves; someone sleeping while someone else isn't, something that happened earlier in the movie, another thing that happened earlier in the movie, some yelling, and something that was shown in the trailers, before the epilogue dialogue shows up and chronicals what occured after the camera stopped rolling, which isn't very much.

The acting isn't terrible, and the four character cast doesn't hurt the film; although considering two of the characters appear twice each, and only ever appear on screen for five minuets at most before buggering off, you don't really care about them. After an occult "ghost whisper" tells the couple that he can't help them, but he knows a demonologist who could, I was waiting the entire film for this dude to show up and get torn to shreds by the creature, which apparently had a complete stalker style crush on the female protagonist. Yet the guy never shows up! The one time they decide to do the samrt thing and ring him up, he's out of the country, and the film ends before he returns.

That's alot of what happens here; foreshadowing none existent events. After the boyfriend, Micah, leaves talcum powder on the floor, three toed talon like footprints are discovered, hinting at a less human shaped than humanoid form for the creature, but that's the closest we get to a glimpse of it. After Katie (The girl) tells of her previous expirences being "haunted" by this ghoul, involving it's shadowy form standing in front of her bed and watching her before vanishing, I expected to at least see a shadowy vision of it's form cross the hallway at some point. Nope, the closest we get here is seeing a shadow on the door once, for a few seconds. An online record of what happened to the last unlucky gal to be victimized by this creature not only fails to line up with what happens in the film, but outright condradict's it on several points.

The movie's attempts at situational horror comes down to what must be the very first horror story ever created; something going bump in the night. Footsteps that make me believe the demon is Hagrid echo across the landing and stairwell at night. A massive thump that causes an amusing reaction from the characters (and a fair few memebers of the crowd) makes me wonder if the demon dropped a table. The first occurance caught by Micah's clever camera is the bedroom door swinging slightly side to side. A week later, the door slowly closes itself. Then, another week after that, it bangs shut with a noise that ellicted a scream from the actors and tears from a lady who had to leave the theatre. Heh.

I suppose it would have been scarier if I'd seen it alone, but when watching it with other people, it becomes impossible not to take the piss. When Micah said something brave, I wondered if he intended to punch Satan. When something went bang, I laughed and imagined a poltergist knocking chairs over. And, (Slight Spoiler Warning) when the demon got tired of small freakout and's pulled Katie out of her bed and into the hallway, prompting screams of fear and Micah superman jumping the bed only to run into the door, I wanted to know just what the hell the demon wanted to do with the poor girl. (All Safe Now.)

If you want to go see this movie, don't let my opinions bother you. But if your on the fence, go see Zombieland instead. It has zombies, comedy, and a giant gunfight with the undead in an amusement park. Hell of a lot more than someone dicking around with a camera, trying to recreate project zero.