If you are already shuddering with fear as you take your seat in the theatre, they have a chance. That is, if the expectation of being scared is enough to scare you, the people behind Paranormal Activity may succeed with what they set out to do to you. But if you have even the mildest propensity for healthy skepticism – if you remember The Blair Witch Project as a marketing strategy rather than a movie-watching experience – these amateur frightmeisters don’t stand a chance.
Paranormal Activity begins with a title card thanking the young couple in the film on behalf of distributor Paramount Pictures. This transparent attempt at injecting some sense of reality into the proceedings is enough to cue the first worried susurrations from the peanut gallery, along with a groan from some hardened cynic at the back of the theatre.
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Paranormal Activity Directed by Oren Peli. |
At its root (like Blair Witch before it), it is a pale imitation of the Cannibal Holocaust advertising campaign, which convinced moviegoers that the principal actors had been killed in the making of an exploratory documentary – and completed the effect by contractually requiring said actors to stay out of the public eye for a time, which ultimately triggered criminal investigations into whether anyone had really died during filming.
The story, such as it is, takes as its motivation the now-familiar mechanism of found footage. Harassed by a supernatural presence in much the same way as New York was terrorized by a giant alien amoeba in Cloverfield, Katie and Micah decide to gather evidence of their ghostly persecution by filming their encounters with a movie camera; we watch the recordings without any inkling of how they might escalate or end.
Director Oren Peli takes a “Pit and the Pendulum” approach, alternating between nighttime recordings of the couple’s supernatural persecution and daylight scenes of increasing acrimony as trauma and helplessness boil over. (They can’t just leave the house, it turns out, because the ghost is linked to Katie herself.)
Unfortunately, Peli hasn’t Poe’s sense of tension and atmosphere, so the nocturnal creepings are pedestrian instead of subtle, and the premarital discord inspires ennui more than sympathy. It is clear as things unfold that the storyteller is attempting to steadily build tension to an unbearable level, but what we are treated to instead is a slow boil, the cinematic equivalent of waiting for your frozen vegetables to hurry the heck up and cook.
Matters are not helped by the heavy-handed musical cues that announce the beginning of every “scary” scene. Nor is it commendable to go through a checklist of irksome fright-film clichés – the ouija board, the old photograph (that “couldn’t possibly here”), the professional psychic who is immediately terrified upon entering the house – without a single new or creative entry.
Studio backers are hoping that word of mouth, and the sight of audiences jumping in their seats (in an advertising campaign costing far more than the film itself), will be enough to keep Paranormal Activity raking in money. But the hype is as insubstantial as the film’s antagonist: initial screenings sold out because only five were scheduled across North America; reports of people lining up for blocks to get in are the result of wild over-booking, not infinite popular interest.
Combining the worst elements of Vantage Point (profligate repetition) and Open Water (silly dialogue, poor production quality), Paranormal Activity lacks conviction and intensity in equal measure. The only paranormal activity here relates to Hollywood’s profit margin.