Caution: Paranormal Activity might leave you 'damaged'

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By Travis Leeper

Rating: A

Having not been born in the time of classic horror films like The Exorcist, Psycho, or A Nightmare on Elm Street, I can't say for sure how the initial reactions played out. Were these films regarded as instant classics, capable of inducing nightmares and post-traumatic symptoms in the viewers? I don't know. But I do know that Paranormal Activity, a low-budget horror film from director Oren Peli, is.

Reactions have been polarized. I've met a few people who blew the movie off as cheap haunted-house gimmicks riding on the hand-cam back of Blair Witch; yet I've met far, far more who were beyond spooked, they were damaged. One viewer remarked, "I seriously consider seeing that movie as one of the biggest mistakes of my life." This was three weeks after viewing.

Paranormal Activity documents the anxious life of two twenty-somethings, Micah and Katie, living decently in their suburban San Diego home. When the film begins, Micah has already purchased a shiny new camera to document the reoccurring weirdness that has been following Katie her whole life. With almost the entire movie taking place in a single shot that squeezes the open bedroom door on one side of the screen and the couple's cushy, oversized bed on the other, Paranormal Activity superficially resembles other hand-cam horrors like Cloverfield, Blair Witch, and REC.

But Paranormal Activity isn't like any of these films. Instead of relying on shaky, jarring camera motions to confuse and startle, Paranormal Activity forces you to watch one shadowy frame, dragging your eyes along the bottom the door, the side of the threshold, and down the dark hallway in search of demonic presence.

The film focuses on insomnia, anxiety, and denial more than it does on ghouls and ghosts, and that's what's so unsettling about it. Almost everything is your imagination going absolutely insane, regressing back to a childhood time when anxious, sleepless hours were spent staring out the window, down the hall, or under the bed.

Initially released in a select few college towns (including Baton Rouge), Paranormal Activity has since exploded with hype, now playing as a wide domestic release across the country. Even if the film doesn't scare you, it's guaranteed to entertain, achieving more on a fifteen-grand budget than some do on fifteen million. But if you are the type to be scared, prepare to check every noise in your house for the next few days, months, years...

Originally Published: Issue 820 - October 21, 2009

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