PARANORMAL ACTIVITY – oren peli – 4.0 / 10

I’m not sure if the backlash against Oren Peli’s no budget horror film has already begun, but if it hasn’t, let me start it now. Far from the ‘scariest film ever made,’ Paranormal Activity is little more than long stretches of boring people talking about themselves punctuated by the occasional jump scare that could’ve been rigged up by any fifth grader with a decent imagination and a couple hours to kill.


Maybe I’ve just seen too many horror movies but a creaky door, a billowing sheet and a couple of weird footprints aren’t exactly groundbreaking scare tactics. In truth, there isn’t one thing in Paranormal Activity that anyone who sees the occasional horror film hasn’t already seen a dozen times. The only difference is the way in which these scares are presented (i.e. in a believably realistic way). The film purports to be the mostly unedited footage a young couple recorded to document the creepy things that were happening in their house. The entire film is comprised only of footage that this couple shot. The audience sees only what they saw through the lens of their camera.

While this aesthetic works pretty well for Paranormal Activity, it’s not exactly a new technique. Cloverfield and Quarantine used the same approach a couple years back. And, of course, The Blair Witch Project famously mined this same aesthetic to great financial success at the start of the decade. So, if the technique itself isn’t the draw here, what is?

The only explanation I can see for the reactions the film is eliciting is that audiences have somehow, because the film looks like it could really have been shot by these two people, convinced themselves that this all really happened. If you believe that, then I guess it makes sense that this film would scare you more than anything that uses music and lighting and special effects. I just don’t understand how you can believe that. But then, maybe I’m just jaded. In which case, Paranormal Activity really isn’t meant for me. Because to me the film wasn’t the scariest thing I’d ever seen. It wasn’t even the scariest film I saw this week (that would be Cold Prey). In fact, if I had to describe my reaction to the film in one word it would be: bored.

Oh, and I was also actively rooting for Micah (he’s the guy, in case that wasn’t clear from his name) to get his ass kicked by the demon that had supposedly taken root in their house. Micah shoves his new camera in his girlfriend Katie’s face at every moment despite her constant protests for him to put it down. He incessantly taunts the demon to do something scarier or more threatening. He even pulls the classic ‘I swear the camera’s off’ move as he tries to surreptitiously record a sex tape. He’s such an insensitive douchebag that it becomes pretty difficult to care if anything bad happens to him. In fact, about half an hour in, I found myself hoping he wouldn’t survive the film.

For obvious reasons Paranormal Activity has garnered a number of comparisons to The Blair Witch Project. Both films share a found footage aesthetic, amateur actors purporting to be real people and a miniscule budget. Most of the comparisons between the two films, however, have praised Paranormal Activity for actually showing a couple of freaky things where The Blair Witch Project was content to just show the characters reacting to supposedly scary stuff that happened off camera. And, to be sure, Paranormal Activity is a whole lot better than The Blair Witch Project. But the real strength of both of these films is their marketing. In the case of The Blair Witch Project, that was a website that led many people to believe that the events depicted in the film really happened. For Paranormal Activity, the genius marketing strategy is to show almost no footage from the actual film in any of the ads. Instead the advertising focuses on night vision footage of recruited test screening audiences as they freak out while watching the film. The ads show five seconds of the film and twenty-five seconds of audiences jumping and screaming and generally freaking the fuck out. It’s a classic example of selling the sizzle and not the steak.

In this case, that’s a wise move because there really isn’t anything in Paranormal Activity that would be very interesting if it were put in those commercials. The film is little more than the same standard scare tactics that have been used in thousands of movies over the past fifty years dressed up with a modern aesthetic. If that aesthetic can convince you that the film is more ‘real’ than more straightforward horror films, than it might work for you. But if it can’t, Paranormal Activity will fall very very flat. Put me squarely in the latter camp.