Paranormal Activity
Movie Title: Paranormal Activity
Description: A haunted house makes no secret of the fact it is not pleased with its new tenants in this independent tale of supernatural horror. Katie (Katie Featherson) and Micah (Micah Sloat) are a twentysomething couple who've just moved into a new home in San Diego, California. Katie has an interest in the paranormal and believes that malevolent spirits have been following her since childhood, though Micah is not so easily convinced. However, after several nights of loud noises and strange happenings, Micah starts to agree with Katie that some sort of ghost may have followed them to the new home. After a paranormal researcher tells the couple he can't help them, Micah decides to take control of the situation and sets up a battery of video cameras so that if a spirit manifests itself, he can capture its behavior on tape. Once the surveillance cameras are in place, Katie and Micah bring in a Ouija board in an effort to talk to the spirits, a move that deeply offends the ghosts. PARANORMAL ACTIVITY was the first feature film from writer-director Oren Peli.
Critics Reviews | |
| E! Online, Peter Paras "One of the decade's scariest films..." | A |
| Entertainment Weekly, Owen Gleiberman "With its this-is-really-happening vibe, Paranormal Activity scrapes away 30 years of encrusted nightmare clichés." | A- |
| Filmcritic.com, Keith Breese "...old school, haunted house horror." | B- |
| Hollywood Reporter, Kevin Lally "Effective jolts await in this ultra-low-budget haunted-house tale, but audiences will need extraordinary patience." | B |
Staff Reviews
The movie Paranormal Activity was made in a very less budget almost a shoestring budget, but it is compared to a big budget Hollywood movie in terms of effectiveness and it is judged on an equal footing with other movies. It was a mega-hyped project just like “Blaire Witch Project”, which was released several years ago.
The movie Paranormal Activity showcases a real incident of a poltergeist happening that was actually experienced by a couple. The movie is quite interesting at the level that it is portraying. It is a true story of a couple where the wife gets possessed and many strange things happen to her in the nights. She just cannot remember what she does at night. She wakes up and keeps standing for hours or walks in her sleep. Slowly, these things get manifested and one night when she is possessed she stabs her husband. Many of the paranormal happenings and incidents that have been depicted in the movie have really taken place with the couple. Critics have pointed out that towards the climax when the movie actually starts getting really creepy, it falls apart perhaps because the film makers didn’t have sufficient budget to pull off the movie any further. This is where a disadvantageous point comes for the movie.
Critics have said that paranormal activity did not need better and more costly special effects to succeed, but it seems that this movie could not reach to that desired expectation level, which the film makers wanted it to attain. The most effective horror movies work on a psychological level and paranormal activity has effect to a good extent on the audience.
Paranormal Activity is worth a watch and many people had a scary night after watching the movie. Only because of its strong relation to a real incident, it could capture a wide audience.