My Review: Paranormal Activity (9/10)

Paranormal Activity is the scariest movie of the year and probably one of the best I have seen because of the way the film was executed with such a low budget compared to all the other horror Hollywood movies that have come out over the last decade. With so many sequels, Asian-Horror remakes, and so on, this movie really felt like a breath of fresh air and I finally found a Horror movie that was actually scary and entertaining at the same time. This was a very scary movie filmed in a mocumentary style just like The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield, but even better because you dont have the shaky moving camera this time around and the movie really feels natural and raw with decent performances from an everyday regular couple. Yes, the movie was done by amateurs (first time director and actors), but they blew away anything that Hollywood has done in the genre in recent years. I found REC, the Spanish horror movie pretty entertaining, but this movie was just way better. I had high expectations for this movie before watching it and it still lived up to those expectations. I didnt even see this in a theater because it hasnt come out here, I watched it alone in my room on dvd and it was still effective (and perhaps it even worked out better for me because the main action occurs in the bedroom).

The movie is filmed, as I said before, in a mokumentary style. Micah and Katie (played by Micah Sloat and Katie Featherston, yes they even used their real names in this movie in order to make it look like a real documentary) are a young couple who have just moved in to a new home in the San Diego suburbs. Katie has always felt a strange presence around her since she was 8 years old and now that they have moved to the new house she has felt that presence even more so Micah decides to buy a camera and record everything that is going around in order to discover what is disturbing her so much. He leaves the camera on every night while they sleep in order to discover who this visitor might be. Katie even calls a psychic to understand what is going on with her and he warns them not to try to communicate with this entity. Micah doesnt pay attention to his advice and wants to record some action so he seems to call out for this presence and face whatever this thing is. Stranger and stranger things begin to happen and the suspense continues to build towards the end of the movie as this entity begins to manifest itself in different ways.

I loved how the suspense was built up in this movie with regular things such as noices from a door moving or footseps being heard in the middle of the night. There was no need for unnecesary gore or violence, this movie has no gore in it whatsoever and very few violent scenes. The scares come from the tension that is built in this movie just like Hitchcock would do with his films playing with our senses with familiar noices or situations. First time director Oren Peli did a great job at building the suspense and creating several scary moments during the movie with a very low budget, very few special effects, and unknown actors. You have to give the guy credit for such a suspenseful movie, especially when it has felt like a movie as this hasnt come out in ages. I really enjoyed this film and thought it was very well written and executed. There were a lot of jump scenes which is always a plus in this genre. This is without a doubt one of my favorite scary movies of all time. I should have payed attention to the tagline and not seen this movie alone!