Saw it on Friday night, which was a HUGE mistake being opening weekend and the theater was flooded with OBNOXIOUS giggling, talking, yelling teenagers who make me want to advocate for forced sterilization...
But anyway. While the audience tried its best to ruin any atmosphere that the movie was attempting to create, I think that I was able to have a few take-aways... Though I think it'll be much, much better when I can watch it in my bedroom alone at night...
Paranormal Activity was
good. Does it live up to the apparent hype that it's getting? No (I'm actually glad that I somehow missed the hype before seeing the movie; otherwise it would have REALLY been ruined). The fact of the matter is, this movie is a solid
3.5/4 out of 5 stars, which is better than a lot of the canned horror crap that comes out these days.
The Positives:
- The movie is definitely successful at creating mood.
- The movie definitely had legitimately creepy parts
- The movie was DEFINITELY successful at creating a threat
- I am impressed that with a small budget and only four actors, I felt as though I was brought into this little world of horror. Hats off to them.
The Negatives:
- One word: Derivative. Haunting movies have been done. The hand-held genre is currently being overused. And I'm actually starting to get tired of the whole "this is a tape that we just happened to find" set up.
- Paranormal Activity doesn't do a whole lot to evolve the hand-held camera vehicle. While Cloverfield successfully experimented with the giant monster, [REC] successfully experimented with the zombie, and Home Movie successfully experienced with evil children, here we are back to another haunting.
- The characters seriously annoyed me at times. One of the growing issues that I have with the hand-held camera vehicle is that I am really starting to ask myself, "If your situation is so horrible, WHY IS YOUR FIRST INSTINCT TO GRAB THE CAMERA?!?!?!" This question bothered me in this film more than usual, especially since it was so successful at creating mood; I was scared, so they must be too - WHY GRAB THE CAMERA?! GET OUT OF THE HOUSE!
- Which brings me to a very nit-picky point: Lighting. This movie takes place IN THEIR HOUSE. They have the choice the turn on the lights AT ALL TIMES. Yet they don't. That just bothered me. With Blair Witch at least they were in the woods - NO LIGHTS THERE. But anyway.
- Predictable. Now this is just coming from me, the jaded horror fan, but a couple of the "scares" were just plain predictable.
Regardless of the negatives, though, this movie as I said is a solid 3.5/4. It's not a perfect movie; it definitely doesn't really try to do anything new, but it's a solid derivation. I am happy that there are actors and directors out there who want to produce this type of movie at all. And sometimes that's all that the die hard horror fan can ask for. I enjoyed it and am looking forward to watching it with my boyfriend alone in the dark of our apartment.