Fear What Lurks in the Shadows: Paranormal Activity

Fear What Lurks in the Shadows: Paranormal Activity
by David J. LeMaster

My biggest pet peeve about Hollywood is multi-million dollar computer-graphic effects. Nothing ruins a good scary movie faster than the lengthy cut to a computerized demon, laughably fixed in front of a blue screen, drooling, or growling, or killing, or maiming, or whatever the cookie-cutter villain does that so terrifies its victims. Such shots dominate modern horror and its subgenre, the ax-murderer/slasher movie, and quite frankly, I'm sick of it. Give me psychological thrills over visual graphics any time.

Paranormal Activity, therefore, is what movies should be about for me: good acting, good editing, hellacious psychological scares, and good, clean fun.

Director Oren Peli's film is far from perfect; the conceit becomes somewhat difficult to watch at times, the film is a little slow at the beginning, and the handheld camera makes the audience dizzy at best, and queasy at worst. I'd never gotten dizzy in a film before, not even in Blair Witch, a film easily compared (but far inferior) to this one, but had to move to the very back of the theater to keep from getting sick. Nevertheless, the film's strengths and energy far outweigh the few imperfections, and Paranormal Activity goes down as the year's most pleasant surprise.

Katie Featherston as Katie carries the film with a believable, stirring performance. Her banter with Micah Sloan, sometimes scripted, sometimes improvised, retains an element of truth difficult to achieve in any genre, much less in the often melodramatic turns of horror. Featherston's character evolves through the film as her hope for resolution dims and her sense of humor leaks away, replaced by an overwhelming alarm. The audience willingly takes the trip with her, enveloped in the mystery which is made all the more effective by Peli's decision to keep his villain psychological, a thing of our imaginations. As a result, we join Featherston in imagining the sheer horror of the thing lurking in the dark.

Micah Sloan provides the perfect foil for Featherston, and much of the film's humor (and yes, a horror film can be quite humorous, even without the canned one-liners and generic retread jokes). Got a problem with a spirit lurking in your house? Sloan's answer--buy a camera and try to make the spirit show up more often. Is the spirit turning angry? Sloan's answer--buy a Ouija board and open up the metaphysical doors! The relationship between the two is fresh and amusing--and, surprisingly, very real.

Mark Fredrichs as the psychic provides subtle exposition in the film's first twenty minutes as well as much-needed comic relief in the buildup to the catastrophe. Ashley Palmer's character is not fleshed out, and the actress delivers a forgettable performance. But that's the only thing forgettable about Paranormal Activity.

The film's greatest achievement is its building a sense of suspense. Featherston and Sloan sleep with the bedroom door open and a video camera pointed toward them that gives us a view of the bedroom and hallway and what lurks beyond. With each passing night the audience's sense of anticipation grows as we seek out a movement in the shadows. This is imminently effective in creating a dramatic irony and tension. By the ending (which I didn't like quite as much as the rest of the film, partially because I lost a sense of the unknown) the audience is ready to scream even at the mere passing of shadows on the floor.

So. . . is it an Oscar winner? Probably not. Is it the most horrifying film in years? I'm not the right person to ask--I'm horrified by war films (Platoon, Saving Private Ryan), and find myself laughing and having great fun in a suspense/horror film like this one (I laughed uproariously throughout, especially in the last reel). Am I crazy? Naw. I just enjoy laughing through a good scare. And Paranormal Activity is a great one.

The professor grades the movie:

Acting: A-
Directing: A
Script: B
Special Effects: NA
Entertainment Value: A-
Miscellaneous: B+

Final Grade: A-

Recap: A psychological thriller that keeps the audience guessing and builds a wonderful sense of suspense.