[stepurhan]

Paranormal Activity

It's a 15-rated film. This reflects the fact that very little that you could actually call horrific happens in it. Despite that, this is one of the scariest films I've seen in a while.

The basic story is of a couple that have lived together for a while and are starting to experience odd events (the Paranormal Activity of the title) The boyfriend, who is extremely sceptical, has bought a camera to film these events. The film entirely consists of film made with this camera. As well as the night-time filming (the camera is set up in the corner of the bed-room with a wide shot of the bed and view down the hall) there are day-time scenes talking about it.

Sounds a lot like the Blair Witch Project, and comparisons are inevitable, but there are important differences. Firstly, everything takes place in an ordinary house. If Blair Witch scared you then you simply didn't go into any remote woods and you were fine. This film could happen where you live. Secondly, and more importantly, Blair Witch always involved an active cameraman. A lot of the filming in this is when the camera is set up at night and thus filming the leads sleeping. Weird events when the characters are so vulnerable heighten the tension.

So why is it scary? The answer is that most of the time it tricks the viewer into winding themselves up. There's no soundtrack so you get long silences when you anticipate something happening. Often the happening is eerie but mundane (a light flicks on with no-one near it, the covers remove themselves from the bed) but that just makes it worse. You very much get the impression of something playing with them that could do worse and, as the film progresses, the eerie happenings get more overt and dramatic. The cumulative effect is that, by the final night, I was wound so high that the grand finale made me jump out of my skin, even though I was anticipating. This is all enhanced by the film having no proper opening and closing credits, never really acknowledging it is a work of fiction. Never before have I been so glad for a DVD extra (alternate ending) to provide proof of that.

If you're a fan of cerebral horror that doesn't just consists of gore and hideous creatures leaping about then watch this film. Just don't watch it alone, or at night.