Paranormal Activity directed by Oren Peli
Blumhouse Productions/Icon
Katie and Micah, a young couple in San Diego, hear strange bumps in the night; Micah buys a fancy video camera to capture evidence in case something weird is happening in their home. And it is. We, the audience, see through the lens as the video evidence accumulates, the bumps get bumpier and the nights get both stranger and scarier.
Paranormal Activity isn't your normal cinematic experience - although obviously a lot of work and editing has gone into it, it's very proudly a low-budget Blair Witch-inspired film, shot over just seven days by a first-time filmmaker with just two assistants. There's no music and a very small cast. At 83 minutes, it's only just a feature film really, and it feels like a short. The atmosphere is also undermined by some comedy, not all of which I'm sure is intentional, an annoying character, Micah - he is seriously annoying, and will be particularly for British audiences I think - and some hilariously clunky storytelling.
But considering the budget, this is a pretty good film, and quite an achievement for the writer and director Oren Peli. It does build tension pretty well and it is quite scary in an old-fashioned unoriginal way. Katie Featherston is pretty good as Katie, while Micah Sloat is okay in his very irritating part, doubling as cameraman. I enjoyed it, and even the clunkiness and occasional laughs contribute to a potentially ironic cult appeal. It could do surprisingly well. It's a slight film, and the ending is a let-down. It says a lot, though, that I felt disappointed there wasn't another twenty or thirty minutes of tension and exploration. I was never bored, and left wishing there'd been more.
I wouldn't like to pay top whack in central London for it - but if you can do it as a local late-nighter after the pub, you'll have fun.
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