Paranormal Activity (2007)

Directed by Oren Peli [Other horror films: Area 51 (2015)]

Overly pointless, I don’t see why this movie gets as much praise is it seems to. I never have. Admittedly, I’ve only seen it two times now, but Paranormal Activity strikes me as entirely unremarkable and has little going for it, at least in my perspective.

I don’t mind that the plot is thin – that’s fine. There were some interesting things that occasionally came up, such as the picture Micah found in the attic, or the fact that the demonologist recommended to the couple doesn’t actually show up (I’ve not seen any of the sequels, but if I had to bet, I’d say he probably appears in at least one of them). Katie being dragged out of bed was solid too.

But boy, does the boyfriend, Micah, get on my nerves. At first, he doesn’t take seriously the idea that his girlfriend is dealing with supernatural experiences (despite the fact that she’s very obviously being impacted by it), and once he grows to accept something’s going on, instead of turning to what passes as professionals in the field (such as the aforementioned demonologist), he acts all macho about it, and wants to deal with it himself.

How he expects to ‘deal’ with an invisible entity is never explained, and I suspect he has literally no idea of what exactly to do, which is why going to someone who might actually know a way to help would be a route worth investigating, but instead he berates the idea, because macho man is strong and masculine.

Micah Sloat and Katie Featherston both do an okay job as far as their performances go. Like I said, Sloat’s character is pretty annoying, and while I suspect toward the end of the film he realizes his idiotic mistakes, that doesn’t make him any easier to swallow. Featherston did fine as a young woman slowly getting terrified into inaction. To her credit, she has a good handle of what to do, but her boyfriend thinks he knows better, so there’s no shot for a happy ending.

As for the ending, I was lukewarm. It wasn’t terrible, but it certainly wasn’t worth a rather dull and aggravating build-up that Paranormal Activity gave us. I would have tried harder to get Katie out of the house than Micah did, but maybe he was just tired and didn’t care about the potential danger.

Though I say this virtually every time I review a found footage movie, I don’t have a problem with the style. I think it presents a lot of potential, especially for low-budget movie-makers, but at the same time, it’s a double-edged sword, because much of the time it’s overdone and automatically called ‘the scariest movie of [insert year here]’ with literally nothing backing the claim up.

I don’t like Paranormal Activity. I remember the trailers hyping it up, but the movie’s a mixture of dull and annoying, with the occasional piece of potential thrown in just to further frustrate the watcher. I also accept that I’m in the minority here, and maybe the series gets better later on, but as for this first movie, it was a waste of time and certainly one of the most pointless horror movies of 2007.

4/10

This is one of the films covered on Fight Evil’s podcast, with my friend Chucky (@ChuckyFE). Listen below to hear my disappointment in the flesh.