The newest Hollywood thriller “Paranormal activity” starts out with one of the main characters, Micah, played by Micah Sloat, testing out the new camera he has bought to record all of the “paranormal activity” his girl friend Katie (Katie Featherston) has experienced since she was eight years old. The whole film is shot with a very nice, very expensive camera—think “The Blair Witch Project”—but in high-definition (HD), and without the close-up crying shots. The couple lives in a cute suburban house, where the film takes place. The film is shot in two parts: the daytime and the night.
The daytime parts of the film are boring. A good portion of the film is the couple fighting and then making up, and talking about how crazy all of the footage from the night before is. In addition to this, there are numerous smartass comments from Micah.
The night is when all the spooky stuff happens—like footsteps coming from the stairway and doors opening and closing. Both times though, there’s no one there! Oh and this one time there where footsteps AND a door moving! Now, I know that this might be a little too scary, but wait until you hear what happens next. In the middle of the night, Katie gets out of bed and stands upright, for at least three hours; she then just gets up and leaves. And she had no idea she was doing it! Talk about scary.
This was the film in a nutshell. I’m not sure what I am more upset about, how lame the film was, or how scared the majority of the audience was. Every time the film switched to “night-mode” the whole audience gasped in horror, before anything had ever happened.
I think most people were more terrified by the idea of the film, rather than the film itself. People are treating this movie like it is the best scary movie to come out—ever. Let me just say this: NO! Scary movies should not only have you on the edge of your seat the whole time, but make you think afterward. Make you sleep with all the lights on, check behind all the doors in your house and have some sort of substance. The best scary movies are the ones when you get in your car to head home, and you have to keep telling yourself, “it was just a movie, there is no way a girl can come out of my TV and kill me.” But in the back of your mind, you think perhaps it is real.
“Paranormal Activity” had none of that! The ending did have me scratching my head, but not in the good way, in the way where you say to yourself, “Well I not only wasted 10 dollars, I also just wasted 90 minutes of my life that I will never get back.”
So let me ask you this: why? Why were so many people terrified by this film? Why did I listen to the handful of friends that said that I would “die” after seeing this film? Why has it grossed over 33 million dollars? I am hoping it is some sort of extremely elaborate episode of “Punk’d.” If this is the case, best prank ever! And you win, Ashton, you win. DO NOT SEE THIS FILM!