Paranormal Activity

Paranormal Activity

Starring Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat
Rated R for language
Appropriate for ages 18+

    When a young couple starts to hear noises at night in their San Diego home, the boyfriend buys a camera to film their sleep and check for any disturbances.  Sure enough, strange things are afoot in the bedroom while the lights are out and the couple discovers that their is an invisible demon that is after the girlfriend, and the camera at night is capturing everything.

    Shot on a shoestring budget, this indie is causing quite the sensation nationwide.  By demanding the movie to come to their towns on the official website, www.paranormalactivity-movie.com, audiences are slowly bringing this movie across America, only to be shown at midnight.  Houston obviously has some loyal horror fans because the AMC 30 Dunvale got it almost immediately.  This is impressive because it’s not showing in most other markets yet.  I was lucky enough to catch it at the New York City Premiere last Thursday night at midnight and the line for ticket holders was around the block. 

    But besides the hype, the real question is – is it as scary as folks are saying?  The answer – flippin yes.  Sleep is when you are your most vulnerable and to witness this kind of documentary style footage, real or not, told in this context, is as scary as I’ve ever seen.  I am getting the chills just writing this review.  My head and neck start pulsating every time I tell someone about the film.  I was uncomfortably scared for 90 minutes.  My saving grace is that my wife and I were staying in a hotel next door to the theater, because our house looks exactly like the one in the film and I don’t think I could have gone home that night.  Oooh.  Chills again.  

    So is the movie without problems?  No.  There is one major logic flaw: if you are haunted by a demon – get your butt to a church!  Even Bill Maher would change his tune and kiss the Pope’s ring if a demon was attacking his wife, so why did this couple not at least give it a serious thought?  And if there isn’t a good reason for the couple not to try to get some sort of clergy involved, with the exception of the perhaps the world’s only demonologist who happens to be out of town, then go sleep in a chapel for a night.  But then again – there probably wouldn’t be much of a film then if this scenario played out, and that terrific ending, which just gave me another chill, would have never been caught on camera.  A-