Paranormal Some Activity

Spoilers, so stop reading now… seriously…

When I walked out of Paranormal Activity my first thought was “wow, that really sucked”. I think I would of even been more annoyed if I actually had paid to see it. The wife and I used tickets we received as a birthday gift. When I got home and talked to a few friends, who I expected to have the same feeling on the subject, I was shocked to hear that they loved it. I’m almost 100% sure this was related to the fact that they saw it in a theater filled with people, and I saw in classic horror technique to scare people. To many movies today rely purely on being disgusting, and the only creative requirement required to produce shit like that, is if you yourself are… well… disgusting. The level they have gone to is just so far, and anything beyond the current level is just ridiculous. We need to redefine what a horror movie is, and I think it should be defined by the ability to scare you, not to gross you the hell out. Movies like that should just be categorized into gore, or some other genre title that caterers to people who like that… stuff.

What about movies like Alien? There’s a chest burster scene! Now that’s gross!

When that scene in that movie happened, it was so unexpected that it used gore as an effective tool to deliver horror. If the rest of the movie was filled with everyone getting molested and ripped apart on camera, the sense of disgust would overwhelm the sense of horror and therefore it the defeats the purpose of the genre. If you watch a movie like SAW, your not afraid… your just disturbed and grossed out. I’m not trying to take away from that as a movie experience, some people dig that, just that it shouldn’t be defined as horror.

Paranormal Activity is horror… it didn’t really work on me, but I welcome the attempt to pull it off.

As you might have heard, what you see in Paranormal Activity is next to nothing… the ghost or demon in question never makes an appearance. However, it’s actions are easily observable or heard, with weird shadows, sheets moving, or even footprints being made in powder on the floor. It routinely slams doors and makes huge stomping sounds. When each of these events happened, right before the actors began to react to them… it was a little freaky.

However this is where the movie begins to fail…

It’s my personal belief, that when you try to pretend the movie is real footage of real people in a real situation on this earth, you MUST treat every situation as if it’s REAL. If you want to add stupid cliché dialog, and bizarre character motivations, then shoot it like you wood a normal movie. A standard movie allows you to suspend disbelief, because you trust the storyteller (the director). However when you shoot a movie like this… your not watching a character, you are placing yourself in this situation, because these are real people… just like you. So stupid decisions like ‘Not turning the fucking lights on’ become big holes in character, and work to become extremely distracting. Furthermore, I don’t care how awesome you think you are, you will not continue to provoke something that can ‘set shit on fire in your living room’. Yet the worst has to be the filler that surrounds the 15 minutes of somewhat spooky stuff we see in the movie. It’s boring, conversation, arguing ,and relationship drama that places any sane individual into a state of slumber.

I can admit that maybe this might of been a better experience in a large group. Apparently during the show my friends went to there was constant women screaming and a man ran out of the theater terrified. The only experience I had, was at the end, while a man was walking out of the theater…. he said the following:

“BOOOoooooooOOOOOOOoooooo Bullshit.”

Yeah… it sort of was.