Paranormal Activity

During its run in theaters last fall, Paranormal Activity made news because it has become, by some measures, one of the most profitable films of all time. Made for $15,000, it earned over $100 million at the box office. However, it may be ideally suited for home video. Watch this late at night, when it's quiet, in creaky old house, and be prepared for a sleepless night.

To keep costs low, writer and director Oren Peli shot the film in his house. Actually, he didn't shoot anything, as the camera is either held by one of his two actors or sitting on a tripod. And Peli used his own house. Presented as "found footage," Paranormal Activity concerns a young couple who are experiencing the symptoms of a haunting. Katie (Featherston--another sign of an indie film is that the actors use their own names for characters) has been visited by some sort of phantom since she was a child, and it now seems to have followed her to her home in San Diego.

Micah (Sloat) purchases a camera to see if he can document the weird events. We then get a nifty structure--the interplay between the two (the film starts like a typical gonzo porno movie, with Sloat taping Featherston as she walks around the house, suggesting they have sex) and then the camera pointed at the two in bed. Each time we cut to the night scenes, the viewer is conditioned to get into a tense state, as we scrutinize the screen, waiting for something eerie to happen. At first it's as simple as a door moving on its own, or a bang from downstairs, but over the course of the film the dread amps up, like a piece of symphonic music building to a crescendo. By the end it's a legitimate fright-fest.

The film is let down by its cheap price tag. There are clumsy scenes involving a ghost expert, who lays out plot points without much rhyme or reason--he tells them it's a demon, not a ghost, and that leaving the house won't do much good. Of course this is to maintain the single set, and seeks to alleviate the viewer's notion that they should just get out of the fucking house. The actors, who auditioned via Craigslist, are barely above amateur status (they earned $500). Featherston fares better, and is more realistic in her reactions. Sloat, though, comes off as a tool, as he taunts the demon and basically acts like an asshole.

But for as simple as it is, Paranormal Activity is remarkably effective. It is very similar in spirit to The Blair Witch Project, but I found this one much more palpably scary. There are a couple of scenes that are exquisitely terrifying, including one that has Sloat poking his head into an attic at night. I hesitate to mention any more specifics, as it should be best appreciated without knowing what's coming.