| Paranormal Activity | |
 It’s a fairy tale scenario: some anonymous guy or gal picks up a hand-held camera, makes a film on a shoestring budget and thereby obtains fame and fortune. On the very few occasions that this happens the level of excitement amongst audiences and the press tends to reach fever pitch.Such was the case in 1999 with The Blair Witch Project; ten years later it’s happened again with Paranormal Activity. The word of mouth quick-fire has transformed Israeli director Oren Peli’s $15,000 debut feature into the highest grossing independent film of all time. As with Blair Witch, Paranormal Activity’s plot is stripped down to a bare minimum. Micah (Micah Sloat) and Katie (Katie Featherson) are a twenty-something couple who suspect that the spooky noises which plague their nights are more than an instance of faulty plumbing and severe nocturnal flatulence. Micah is your average technophile and insists on making a homemade film on the haunting despite his girlfriend’s growing opposition. The tale mainly focuses on the strains that fear places on the young couple’s relationship, which is a good choice given the budget constraints that the filmmakers faced. Sloat and Featherson do an impressive job at making their characters believable everymen, and they ably pull off the film’s comic relief. Most couples will find something in the psychological portrait that they can identify with and that is more than enough to tug audiences along for the ride. Interesting ideas relating to the paranormal, on the other hand, are in short supply. The film implies that the demon that is tormenting the pair has become randomly obsessed with Katie. Put another way: bad shit often happens to us for no logical reason and there is very little we can do about it. A fair point, granted, but it lacks dramatic dynamism. In consequence, the film’s view of the paranormal feels hackneyed and hollow. Wild claims by some critics that the film is the scariest ever made should be attributed to the hyperbole which tends to accompany successful low budget movies. Paranormal Activity’s tempo is rather slow and insinuating, and throughout most of the theatrical version’s 86 minutes very little – terrifying or otherwise - actually happens. When the paranormal aspects of the film do finally kick in Peli deploys some extremely accomplished effects in order to scare us out of our wits. Still, a couple of well-executed freights do not a great terror movie make. Hats off to the filmmakers for their achievement, but don’t let the hype drag you to the cinema expecting anything other than a decent Friday night entertainment. Rating: *** Starring: Katie Featherston, Micah Sloat, Mark Fredrichs, Ashley Palmer Director: Oren Peli Run time: 86 mins Certificate: UK 15 | US R Release date: 25th November 2009 Review by Alex Diaz For more scares, check out our Horror Top 10, or have a gander at our reviews of The Horseman and Thirst. |
