So why have I brought this little review site back? I wanna talk about a very special movie. A movie you may never have heard of, or have heard fantastic lies from all the rumors surrounding this wonderfully marketed via word of mouth film. That film...
Paranormal Activity
I've decided to stop doing numbers, simply because telling you how much the movie made does not reflect how good a movie is. Not any bias here, this movie doesn't have numbers yet...
Paranormal Activity is a documentation of the events of a couple over the period of a few weeks. Having recently purchased an expensive video camera, Micah plans to record all of the strange occurrences that have been happening around the home he shares with his girlfriend Katie. Over the following days the force that plagues them becomes more and more aggressive, putting great stress on the couple.
This movie is interesting on several fronts. It's marketed completely by word of mouth, a tactic that has mutated into rumors about states having banned the film, that the film will only have midnight showings, and that it is the best horror movie ever made. Only one of these rumors is true.
It's a Handycam film, which I have mentioned before is a style of film making I believe can bring new life into a genre, and here it comes to bring new life into the Haunted House genre. The thing about Handycam films that it's detractors don't seem to realize is no, it's not cheap, or a gimmick, it's a way for viewers to be drawn into a film on a deeper level. We're not watching this film from a magic window in the characters lives, we're THERE, with the camera, it's more visceral and gripping than sitting behind a fake camera...
It is also, of course, touted as true events, which is okay. There's nothing wrong with a Handycam film claiming to be found footage of a real event to build upon it's own reality, it's par for the course... And this film doesn't leave anything out, even having the actors use their real names on camera to keep from needing a credit roll.
But enough of me spouting out my love for the hand held film... Lets get to the movie. It's amazing how...simple it is. The concept isn't exactly unexplored, it is a haunted house movie... well, a haunted person movie. But it's done so... subtly. Each scene progresses the plot only as much as it needs to, it's slow moving and methodical, each event coming with more intensity. It leaves you anxious in your seat as you wait to see what will happen...Will it be horrible? Will it be insignificant?
Another thing this movie does well is the switch. It starts off relatively harmless. The 'paranormal activities' caught are barely anything to worry about. I kept getting angry at the theater goers around me as they giggled and chortled at a door moving or the reaction of the couple to a loud bang... I shook my head with grief, feeling that the atmosphere was being destroyed by some dopes.
Then the movie kept going, the giggles, the laughter, they still came. But they came with less frequency. As the movie neared it's end, and the intensity of each scene topples the last, as these two characters are suddenly taken from mild annoyances to vicious and dangerous forces, the laughter stopped. Gasps and shocked cries replaced them. At the final minutes of the film, I heard fear and worry in the voices of the patrons, and I too was gripped with fear.
This movie starts off with nothing, it lures you in with a false sense of security, and then lashes out at you. People walk in to a horror film expecting to be frightened, so they put their guard up. This movie works on removing those guards, letting you ease in to the film before terrorizing you with the climax.
This is a movie you NEED to see. And you should see it in Theaters. The tag line states "Do not see it alone" and that is not because of how frightening the movie is, but because the experuience of an entire theater shifting from guffaws to shrieks is one you should never miss.
Go see it.
Paranormal Activity is a documentation of the events of a couple over the period of a few weeks. Having recently purchased an expensive video camera, Micah plans to record all of the strange occurrences that have been happening around the home he shares with his girlfriend Katie. Over the following days the force that plagues them becomes more and more aggressive, putting great stress on the couple.
This movie is interesting on several fronts. It's marketed completely by word of mouth, a tactic that has mutated into rumors about states having banned the film, that the film will only have midnight showings, and that it is the best horror movie ever made. Only one of these rumors is true.
It's a Handycam film, which I have mentioned before is a style of film making I believe can bring new life into a genre, and here it comes to bring new life into the Haunted House genre. The thing about Handycam films that it's detractors don't seem to realize is no, it's not cheap, or a gimmick, it's a way for viewers to be drawn into a film on a deeper level. We're not watching this film from a magic window in the characters lives, we're THERE, with the camera, it's more visceral and gripping than sitting behind a fake camera...
It is also, of course, touted as true events, which is okay. There's nothing wrong with a Handycam film claiming to be found footage of a real event to build upon it's own reality, it's par for the course... And this film doesn't leave anything out, even having the actors use their real names on camera to keep from needing a credit roll.
But enough of me spouting out my love for the hand held film... Lets get to the movie. It's amazing how...simple it is. The concept isn't exactly unexplored, it is a haunted house movie... well, a haunted person movie. But it's done so... subtly. Each scene progresses the plot only as much as it needs to, it's slow moving and methodical, each event coming with more intensity. It leaves you anxious in your seat as you wait to see what will happen...Will it be horrible? Will it be insignificant?
Another thing this movie does well is the switch. It starts off relatively harmless. The 'paranormal activities' caught are barely anything to worry about. I kept getting angry at the theater goers around me as they giggled and chortled at a door moving or the reaction of the couple to a loud bang... I shook my head with grief, feeling that the atmosphere was being destroyed by some dopes.
Then the movie kept going, the giggles, the laughter, they still came. But they came with less frequency. As the movie neared it's end, and the intensity of each scene topples the last, as these two characters are suddenly taken from mild annoyances to vicious and dangerous forces, the laughter stopped. Gasps and shocked cries replaced them. At the final minutes of the film, I heard fear and worry in the voices of the patrons, and I too was gripped with fear.
This movie starts off with nothing, it lures you in with a false sense of security, and then lashes out at you. People walk in to a horror film expecting to be frightened, so they put their guard up. This movie works on removing those guards, letting you ease in to the film before terrorizing you with the climax.
This is a movie you NEED to see. And you should see it in Theaters. The tag line states "Do not see it alone" and that is not because of how frightening the movie is, but because the experuience of an entire theater shifting from guffaws to shrieks is one you should never miss.
Go see it.
