PARANORMAL ACTIVITY (2009)

Not a lot of "paranormal activity"...

This is probably the most anticipated movie of the month. Why? Because Paramount decided to make people demand it through events.com, if they wanted it to come to their city. Then, on top of that, eventually it just needed one million people to demand it for it to be released internationally. Wow, I guess it worked, huh? And just in the nick of time. Paranormal Activity was released on October 23rd, RIGHT before Halloween. After all, it would have been a shame should this film have been released Christmas day. Something tells me as many people wouldn’t have been in the spirit then.

Alright, alright. I’ll let off of Paramount for half a second to acknowledge that at least they did advertise creatively, and draw crowds to the Cineplex. But the same people that believe that this movie was actually real, probably believe that Paramount didn’t always plan of releasing it on October 23rd. I wonder if it still would have been released if people didn’t actually demand it? Hmmm…

That said, the premise of this little flick is basically a couple sets up their very own camera to record some uhh – paranormal activity in their home. It starts off small and builds up to some seriously creepy shit. This is all in an effort for the asshole boyfriend to be amused, and have his ever-forgiving girlfriend tell him he’s stupid and they should stop before they make it angry. This is of course before the boyfriend calls the ghost or whatever it is a pussy, asshole, etc. For shame he didn’t listen.

Now, I’m making this sound like some sort of House of Wax fake documentary or something. That’s not the case. This is actually a decent film, which in the spirit of Halloween, you may want to check out. That is if you end up in a theatre filled with people who can actually stay quiet during a movie as to not break the terribly-important (within reference to this movie) suspension of disbelief. I ended up seeing it with a massive amount of 15 year olds on Saturday night, and they ruined every quiet or potentially scary moment. Either by yelling something stupid or by making some other noise (ie: you’re hot!). Sigh…

The reason why this may have happened more than once is because, as aforementioned, the film moves slowly. Not in a bad way, but in a way that allows a person to build suspense over the time that’s its day, or when a psychic comes into the house to explain the rules or whatever. Again, I repeat, this is not a bad thing and assuming you have a decent crowd in the theatre with you, I imagine this to be a highly effective way of storytelling.

All in all, the film could have probably used a little more action, I found myself actually waiting until night to see what happens, and wanting the days to end – which most of the time consisted of the girlfriend telling her beau he should stop, then him telling her no, as he reviews the footage from last night. A film like Quarantine may have lacked the genuine creepiness this film offers, but Quarantine also moved faster, provided more eery and jumpy moments, and actually gave the audience and the characters a reason as to why they couldn’t get out of the house. These people were waaaay too patient if you ask me.

So if you dare to, walk through this door if you’re brave enough, but only if you’re willing to face the scary, scary thought that you may be accompanied by people who either have nothing else to do, or people who are insecure with looking like a baby, and will shout at the screen the whole time “this isn’t scary!”.

*Still courtesy of Paramount Pictures