My Movie Review: Paranormal Activity
By Wade Durham

The Gist: When I first bought my ticket to Paranormal Activity I had yet to see the trailer, all I knew is it was suppost to be shot "blair witch style" that it was scary as hell and that it was on an extraordinarily low budget. Well what you have with Paranormal Activity is pretty indescribable. You see it scared the hell out of me and not in the cutesy gay make-you-jump way. Actual I probably only jumped twice. Anyways it is a movie that actually haunts you. The happenings with the haunting demon in the film are that of things you watch on youtube of people claiming that ghosts moved there door and stuff. However this film takes it to the next level and a very realistic manner. As far as scaring the shit out of you this film is great. I actually had to sleep that night with the lights on because I was afraid. So yes the film is scary, however the story seemed kind of dull to me, for the record a movie all in one location its hard not to be dull. While the filmed dragged on its first half with minor creepy situations, the second half returned with a haunting jump. So it started slow but I think it was the perfect build up to the ending, which is interesting. Paranormal Activity makes itself look real using the blair witch technique, and there will be a lot of rumors about it being real just like The Blair Witch, its not, don't worry. So to sum up my primary review this was a fantastic horror film to come out right in time for Halloween, probably the most scared i've ever been of a movie. However for some odd reason a year from now I think we will forget about it until someone brings it up randomly.

4/5 SUPERB SCORE



ACTING: With a low budget horror film you have to have unknown actors, and me enjoy films as much as I do know this film was fake, however I had friends who thought the movie was real, not just based on real but the actual movie. So that clarifys that the acting was good enough to fool the classic movie-goer.

EFFECTS: It be pretty interesting to know how some of the haunting tricks were done in this film, on such a low budget it shouldn't've been to complicated but all of it looked real.

MUSIC/Sound: Staying true to its realism there is no music in this film. However sound wise the timing is perfect enough to haunt and scare us with dead silence.

STORYLINE: It seems they built the story around the idea that they would have a very low budget, in some areas its kind of dull and boring, I mean of course we have seen films about hauntings in such. However I do think this is the first "haunting" film to get it right.

Genre(s): Horror

Written by: Oren Peli

Directed by: Oren Peli

Release Date:
Theatrical: September 25, 2009

Running Time: 99 minutes, Color

Origin: USA

RATING: R for language

Starring Katie Featherston, Micah Sloat, Mark Friedrichs, Amber Armstrong, and Ashley Palmer