Paranormal Activity (2009)

Just in time to get people in the mood for Halloween, an unusual movie titled Paranormal Activity is creeping around the country in the dead of night, playing in select theaters in select cities, screening only at midnight. Nearly every screening has sold out. Fueled by word of mouth and savvy Internet marketing, this low-budget film with an unknown cast and documentary “found footage” concept can’t help but be compared to The Blair Witch Project; however, Paranormal Activity comes out very favorably in that comparison, because unlike Blair Witch, this film feels believable and actually delivers some screamworthy moments on screen.

As the film begins, a young man named Micah Sloat has purchased a new video camera, to the chagrin of his live-in girlfriend of three years, college student Katie Featherston. (Helping to blur the line between documentary and staged drama, the actors use their real names.) He wants to try to record the “paranormal activity” they’ve been experiencing recently in their San Diego home. Katie hesitantly accepts this with a “boys love their toys” reasoning, but she feels he isn’t taking their situation as seriously as she does; he wants to set up the camera in their bedroom (for more than one purpose, of course) and he taunts the unseen force in the house to do something, anything, so he can get some “good stuff” on tape. Katie’s approach is to call a “psychic” (Mark Fredrichs) to come over and assess their situation. His visit and interview with Katie gives the audience some exposition in a naturalistic manner, and we learn that mysterious incidents have occurred around Katie since her childhood. The psychic’s conclusion: it’s not a ghost haunting their house — it’s a demon, and it’s haunting Katie.

Katie and Micah do their own camerawork much of the time, with Micah sometimes visible in the bathroom mirror as he films arguments between himself and Katie. So there’s a certain amount of oddly framed shots and handheld “shaky-cam” photography, but fortunately that’s not as nauseatingly prevalent as it was in Blair Witch. In fact, the best moments come when the camera is sitting still. Micah sets up the camera in their bedroom, connected to his computer, to record the room all night because that seems to be when the “paranormal activity” usually occurs. This static camera shot, complete with a time code in the corner of the screen, is repeatedly used throughout the film, and each time it does, the tension in the audience palpably ratchets upward, as we watch the slumbering couple at their most vulnerable times, and the “evidence” recorded by the camera grows from mysterious, to creepy, to ultimately terrifying.

The makers of Paranormal Activity seem to have learned much from their forbears; in addition to the previously mentioned improvements over Blair Witch, this film gives us two sympathetic, believable, even likable characters. Micah is somewhat snarky (his dialogue produces numerous laughs) and can be a jerk at times, but he does love and feel concern for Katie; she is understandably emotional given the situation she’s in, but she colors her terror with tinges of weariness and even acceptance from the ongoing experiences. These two people are the only cast for about 90 percent of this film, which takes place entirely within and just outside of their house. That makes for a very effective sense of isolation, a technique used in many of the greatest scary movies of all time, such as Alien and Psycho. Speaking of the latter, this movie pays respect to it not just by the sly midnight-only screening conceit — reminiscent of the original campaign for Psycho which forbade moviegoers from entering once the movie had begun — but also by Hitchcock’s mastery in creating fear and tension in the audience’s imagination through what they don’t see. Sound effects play a key role in Paranormal Activity, and deliver a lot of the creep factor; the audience I saw it with seemed to realize that, and they responded to even the smallest creaks and noises on the soundtrack.

There are virtually no credits on the film, neither at the beginning nor the end; a writer-director named Oren Peli and distributor Paramount Pictures are mentioned only in the brief copyright statement at the end. That cleverly adds to the documentary style of the film’s presentation. As for Mr. Peli and his crew, they did a great, seamless-looking job of keeping their presence hidden and adeptly creating the scary moments.

Not every horror film fan of today is going to like Paranormal Activity; in fact I witnessed several people walk out of the screening halfway through. It doesn’t follow the conventions of typical “dead teenager” films where someone is luridly killed every seven minutes; it doesn’t have the graphic, sadistic torture-porn of the Saw movies; it doesn’t have serial killers or blood, gore, and guts all over the place. What it does have is a simple concept that is cleverly explored and smartly realized. It starts slow, but it’s never boring, and it builds its terror over time, steadily increasing to a crescendo in a way I haven’t quite experienced since The Shining and The Exorcist. And all on a production budget so small they probably earned it back in their first weekend of midnight screenings. Congratulations, filmmakers.

I also think this movie may earn a bad reputation from those who wish to avoid the “hype” or wait for it to come out on DVD. First, marketing and advertising for any film or product can be construed as “hype” — Paranormal Activity is merely employing a clever distribution strategy that recalls the showmanship of 1960s scare-master William Castle, as well as the “roadshow” theatrical presentations of that time, where people bought their tickets for a high-profile movie in advance, and the movie theater was a real destination for entertainment. And second, as for waiting for the DVD, I exhort you, if you live near one of the few theaters showing this movie, to go get your tickets in advance (or buy them online, like I did), then get off your comfy chair, get away from your convenient remote control, get out of your well-lit home, and experience this movie in a dark theater (with a good sound system) full of strangers. The communal responses of the audience help make this movie a really fun and scary thrill ride. Besides, you wouldn’t want to go into a haunted house alone, would you?