…haunted.

I watched a little film entitled Paranormal Activity yesterday.  It’s similar in style (in that it’s “found footage”) to The Blair Witch Project, except that it’s a thousand times better.  Normally I’d critique things like cinematography and score and whatnot, but those things are not present in this film.  There wasn’t even a real script, just a basic formula for each scene, with the actors improvising it. 

The movie follows a couple, Katie and Micah.  Micah brings home a video camera at the beginning of the film, and this is the camera through which we view the entire film.  He’s brought home a camera because Katie is experiencing weird things while she’s asleep.  The movie progresses through three weeks of daytime and nighttime footage, with most of the daytime footage being handheld and most nighttime being from a tripod in the bedroom.  This is the really interesting stuff.

The first night, all that happens in the recording is that the camera picks up a few creaking footsteps on the wood floors, followed by a rather loud running sound.  Nobody wakes up, and nothing else happens.  Night 2, like any other night with no new happenings, is not shown.  On night three, we once again hear the creaking footsteps, and we now see the bedroom door, which is kept open, swing shut a bit, stop, and swing back to the open position.

At this point, I was feeling a little let down.  I had heard this was one of the scariest movies I’d ever see, and a swinging door wasn’t cutting it.  But I stuck around, and if you’re feeling like I was, you should stick around as well.  By the end, I was covering my eyes and peeking through my fingers like I did as a child.  This is a truly frightening movie, and that fear hinges entirely on three things: the acting (which is superb), the effects (believe it or not, they are very important in this movie), and suspension of disbelief.

Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat, who play the two leads, are 100% believable.  You’d think they were really a couple, rather than two strangers who found an audition on Craigslist.  Their joy, sadness, anger, and most importantly, fear come through the screen and seem to affect you directly, like you’re there with them, and a part of it.  The rest of the very small cast does a great job as well, but these two really shine.

You wouldn’t think that effects would matter that much in a found footage film.  Blair Witch didn’t have any real effects that I can think of, and it scared me pretty good.  The few effects that are present in PA, however, are very well done.  I’d love to go into it, but I really don’t want to ruin anything for you, and I can almost guarantee that it would.

Finally, as with almost any movie, but even more so here, you need to be willing to suspend disbelief.  Whether or not you believe that this kind of thing could potentially happen, allowing yourself to believe that this is really happening is an absolute must.  To help with this, watch the film in the dark, with the sound up, and DON’T DO ANYTHING ELSE WHILE THE MOVIE IS ON.  I do this all the time.  I do other stuff while I’m watching a movie.  It could be important (homework) or unimportant (just surfing).  But I heard this one was pretty good, so I turned everything else off.

And it scared the shit out of me.