Rating:
4 out of 5
SHORT VERSION: “Scariest Movie Ever” is a tall order to fill, but Paranormal Activity is definitely a serious fright flick that will continue to creep you out long after the movie ends.
Screen Rant Reviews Paranormal Activity
Paranormal Activity is a little film that was reportedly made for $11,000 over the course of a seven-day shoot by writer/director/producer/editor Oren Peli, and stars newbies Katie Featherston, Micah Sloat and the couple’s camcorder.
The ghost story is pretty straightforward: Katie and Micah (the actors use their real names in the film) are a young couple who have been together for about a year or two and have recently taken the plunge of moving in together. Soon after, they begin to experience weird paranormal activity taking place in their home – lights and sinks turning on and off, doors slamming, etc. Katie soon reveals that this isn’t the first time she’s been “haunted by ghosts” – when she was 8, she had re-occurring visits from a shadowy apparition and her family’s home was eventually burned to the ground without explanation. Since then, the apparition has followed Katie wherever she goes, “visiting” her from time to time, up to the present. Micah wishes that Katie had told him all this BEFORE they moved in together.
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Katie is freaking out about the reappearance of her ghostly stalker, but Micah (of course) is too MANLY to believe in such nonsense, so he invests in a top-grade camera, some top-grade mini microphones and sound recording software, in order to wire the house for a ghost-hunting experiment. Our POV is that of the camcorder and boom mic, as they record the paranormal happenings taking place in Katie and Micha’s home over the course of about three weeks.
That’s the setup, and it would be hard to go much deeper without dropping some major SPOILERS.
I can tell you that Katie and Micah bring in a psychic (Michael Bayouth) who determines that what they’re facing isn’t a ghost trying to establish communication, but rather a malevolent demon, hell bent (pun intended) on claiming Katie’s soul. The psychic tells Katie and Micah that they need to bring in a “demonologist” to help exorcise the evil spirit – only the guy is currently vacation, so they’ll have to wait it out. In the meantime, the psychic breaks down a few demon rules for the couple (and us) to understand:
- There is no running from it – leave the house and the spirit will only follow.
- The spirit feeds off negative energy (anger, fear, etc).
- Don’t do ANYTHING to enrage or attract the demon – especially buying a Ouija Board.
Of course, if you’ve ever seen a horror movie before you know that the rules are only there to be broken by doomed fools. Katie is all nervousness and pragmatism (“Honey, let’s just stop and ask for directions…”), but Micah, the skeptic, would rather “man-up” and handle things his own way (read: pacing the house, challenging the evil spirit to show itself). Smart idea.
The best horror movies are the ones that exploit our deep-seated anxieties about real-life events or situations. The Exorcist was every parent’s worst nightmare: their innocent child suffering a terrible affliction; Rosemary’s Baby played upon the high-anxiety of pregnancy and child-rearing; Hitchcock’s Psycho gleefully exploited the near-universal fear of random, unprovoked violence. Paranormal Activity will stand out for a long time in my mind (and I’m sure others) because it hits just the right panic buttons inside the brain: the familiar fear of the creaky, empty house at night – but more importantly, the high-anxiety of being in a relationship.
The latter theme is only subtly touched on, due to the nature of the POV (it would’ve stupid to have the couple record their dramatic fight moments), but that current is always on and running, coursing through the cinematic subtext. Anybody you partner with in life is bound to come with baggage – Katie’s baggage just so happens to be a freaky demon. Micah is portrayed as something of an alpha-male stereotype – brash and insensitive a lot of the time, you know the picture – but also as a guy who is genuinely trying to help his chick sort out all of the crazy in her past, so they can be happy together in the present. And, like real-life relationships, sometimes the best intentions…
Continue reading our Paranormal Activity Review
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392 Comments
I would rather have nails shoved into my eyes and my testicles removed with a rusty dull spoon than have to sit through this movie again.
If you see this movie you will feed the false propaganda and hyped ratings surrounding this unbelievable scam.
Personally the movie never sold me on the demon haunting. What reputable demon would risk its career or lower itself to participate in this stink? I want my $20.00 and the 99 minutes they pilfered from me.
The tracks left on the floor appeared to be the same type of prints left by Big Bird. Big Bird would have been scarier.
They say this movie was produced in 7 days in the director’s house on a budget of $11,000.00. I find this hard to believe. A group of school children could have produced a better quality movie in 7 hours, in a mobile home, with $11.00. And the acting would have been better.
The say Katie disappeared and was never seen again. Let’s hope she stays lost for the good of theater.
First the scams of a corrupt stock market and now the rip-off of a bad movie seeded with hyped reviews and false advertising.
I think I feel more violated than Andy did in laundry room of Shawshank Prison.
I’d just like to congratulate the director for his brilliance in using simplicity to emit horror into a film with barely no props, nothing destroyed and just 2 main and 2 supporting actors….WOW! IT CAN’T BE DONE ANY BETTER THAN THIS. HE DESERVES A FREAKING AWARD FOR THE MOST DETAILED EXPLOITATION OF SENSES TOWARDS THE AUDIENCE IN FILM MAKING. HIS INSIGHT is awesome towards the reactions of the general public. I think for $11,000 it can’t be done any better than this. Imagine how much initially these 2 actors were getting paid for…WAHAHAHAHA. Really not much at all!!! WOW. CONGRATULATIONS OREN PELI. You deserve my 2 cents!!! It’s not about the horror of the movie…It’s a freaking inspirational movie!!!
This movie was the all-time WORST! Nothing scary about it. The few occurances that did happen, weren’t even remotely frightening. Were we supposed to believe that this video is the actual video recording found? Give me a break! The poor acting should have answered that. I would recommend this to go straight to jail, do not pass go and do not go to DVD.
@S*V*B
You’ve completely misinterpreted this film, like 98% of the other people who posted here.
First off, with all of this there are demons. The sad part is if you are Wiccan (I am not but I see ghosts) depends on what you see. Depending if you even believe this its ehh… I mean I see ghosts, my spirit guide, if you don’t believe I do not care. IF you do thats good, because demons do exist. It is just very unfortunate that this couple was chosen upon to be the victoms…almost like the haunting in Connecticut (a bit over exaggerated) was scary but very true never the less.
I posted on here before about how I felt the movie was a load of crap. I’m not into blood and gore and love paranormal movies especially ghost related. If you want to see scary watch Paranormal State, Ghost Hunters or Ghost Adventures. Now, that scares me. Maybe because it is the real thing unless of course if it’s debunked. I would love to know who Oren Peli knows in Hollywood that helped him slip this movie in. BTW, the actors in the movie did not produce this movie nor direct it. It was produced/directed/written by Oren Peli who is not a college kid.
I saw ‘Paranormal Activity’ last night and it has to be one of the scariest films I have ever seen. The ‘Exorcist’ is widely regarded as the best horror film ever made (both deal with the subject of demonic possesion), yet ‘Paranormal Activity’ has the edge. The home video treatment, like ‘Blair Witch’, places the audience slap bang in the real and when this reality is compromised by unknown forces then the audience are bound to have a palpable response. It looks like too many people are focusing on the low budget aspect of this movie ,and somehow feel cheated, rather than accepting it as simply a tool for creating visceral experiences. The Director of this movie should be congratulated, his script is so tight, putting the protagonists in a situation they cannot escape from. The action never leaves the house and as the occurrences increase in intensity so does the tension, never letting the audience off the hook. Some of the tecniques used such as the time lapse sequences were ingenious. Apparently Spielberg has said it is the scariest film he has ever seen. say no more!
havent been to a movie in a while….was looking forward to this. it was beyond overated!!!!!!! NO story no plot no excitement at all. total dissapointment. waste of any money and time.
Wow. I just saw this movie expecting something AMAZING. I normally don’t like to be alone while watching truly scary movies for fear of being completely freaked out. I was able to watch this the entire time with nothing more than a few chill bumps. DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY! It was NOT any good. Maybe I just got my hopes TOO high because of all the high ratings, so that lead to my disappointment. Unsure of what the cause was, I was severely let down.
i saw this movie on a free site because i was short on cash. im really glad i didnt pay for this movie. i wasted 97 minutes of my night. if you want to cut out the boring parts, the almost freaky parts are in the last 20 minutes. spoiler-it sucks! and they die
SPOILERS
i thought the ending was pretty damn scary when she freaking screamed sosoosos loud and then micha freaking came up the staircase and she was just standing there, then she went up close to the camera! that was some freaky stuff.i gasped and got chill bumps, but i didnt scream or anything
honestly…. it sucked. Would never ever ever watch it again.. would never suggest that someone would go watch it. terrible.
Wow….a better name for this movie would be “That Damn Cat”. It’s actually not that bad if you just think of it as a group of cats haunting a house. Cat’s could easily pull off all the scary events that happen. If you don’t have that kind of imagination, it’s the worst movie you will ever see.
It sucked really hard…waste of money and time.I’ve seen scarier horror movies than this one…
Let me start by saying I wasn’t unnerved by this movie in the least. I find it interesting that a lot of posts here say that “if you liked Blair Witch Project, you’ll like this movie”. That statement couldn’t be further from the truth. I enjoyed the BWP, it chilled me, partly (I suppose)because of my love for camping and the outdoors. So, on the other side of the coin, if you were a student who owned your own 4 bdrm house than this movie might scare you.
This was such a lame movie. I was not remotely scared. With all the hype I was under the impression that I was going to be in for a huge scare. I wasn’t scared once. Please save your money and don’t spend it to see this train wreck. This was low budget and really a kick in the ass for a true horror movie buff. Apparently the people who liked the movie, don’t get out much. It was L-A-M-E…
the best horror film iv seen in a long long time,you will always get the”RUBBISH,DIDENT SCARE ME TYPES”,but this is what i cal a real horror movie,dont watch on your own.
Wow…did I see the same movie as you?
I’m with Lance and notsoscareddude
hmmm…it waz a gud movie…ending scenes were gud..hey answer me sumthn z it a real story or jus a movie???????
i heard dat its a real story n she waz killed n murdered da hero,,, z it true????????
or it waz jus a movie…n z katie alive??????
I was really excited about seeing this movie, and it did not disapoint. i cannot understand anyone saying it was a bad movie, or that the acting was bad. This film was superb and very unnerving. I’m actually shocked to read that anyone disliked, let alone this many people. To all who enjoy a good scare……this is a must see movie and I will certainly be purchasing this on DVD.
chris1988:
ALL of use kept waiting for the scare…..LOL it never came!!!!!!!!!
Again I’d like to reiterate how god awful this movie was. Its designed to scare chubby, middle-class college student girls with boring lives. God that part where she got dragged out of the bed had me rolling! 0 out of 5 stars.
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