“Paranormal Activity” Review: Never Have So Many Been So Scared by So Little

Image copyright Paramount Pictures
Image copyright Paramount Pictures

The horror genre is a funny thing. Modern special effects allow directors to depict horrific feats of mutilation, create armies of hideous monsters and stretch body counts into double or triple digits.  And yet I’d be hard-pressed to name a single gorefest that generates as much actual fear as Paranormal Activity, a super-low-budget film that shows the audience almost nothing besides a guy, a girl and a pleasant suburban house.

The movie presents itself as a documentary edited together from footage shot by Micah (Micah Sloat), a young day trader living with his girlfriend Katie (Katie Featherston). The couple has been experiencing some odd phenomena, like strange noises and objects seeming to move by themselves, so Micah buys a video camera and sets it up on a tripod in their bedroom every night, in the hopes of capturing some of the titular activity on tape. He succeeds. Paranormal Activity, like Trick ‘r Treat, gathered enthusiastic buzz at festivals and local venues; at the Coolidge Corner screening I tried to get in to a month ago the line literally circled the theater. Unlike Trick ‘r Treat, Activity was finally released nationwide and went on to beat out Saw VI at the box office.

Festival buzz should always be taken with a grain of salt, but in this case it’s justified.  This film succeeds at being genuinely, satisfyingly scary not despite but because of its determination to show the audience as little as possible: A door swinging closed, a shadow, powdery footprints appearing by themselves.  Theoretically these things shouldn’t be as scary as slavering werewolves or dismembered body parts, but they are, and for three reasons.  The first is that, as H. P. Lovecraft wrote, “the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.”  We never really understand the thing that is terrorizing Micah and Katie, and that bothers us.  The second reason is that the plot’s tension never gets released through jump scares; it just builds continuously throughout the 86-minute running time.  You know something is going to happen, but what?  And when?  And the third reason is that Sloat and Featherston portray their characters realistically enough for you to believe in them and sympathize with them.

Don’t get me wrong–Paranormal Activity isn’t disturbing on the level of The Shining or The Exorcist.  As scared as you’ll be in the theater, you probably won’t lose too much sleep later.  It also doesn’t tap into any cultural zeitgeist, and its camcorder-horror style isn’t new or innovative, having been done before in movies like The Blair Witch Project and [REC].  This movie stands out solely due to the craft of its execution–its willingness to build suspense slowly and subtly.

So yes, believe the hype.  This Halloween, theaters are going to be showing a movie worthy of the day.

About Matt Hoffman

Matt Hoffman (COM/CAS '10) is a film writer for the Quad, and is currently majoring in Film and International Relations at BU. His writing can also be found at Pegleg Spinners, Super Tuesdays and Mania.com. He grew up in Connecticut and is not a pro BMX biker.

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