PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3.0 *** generally; 3.5*** for Scary Movie Genre What better time to see a scary movie than on Halloween at midnight. What better way to watch a scary movie than with a theatre full of people who are really ready to be scared. What better movie to make it all happen than, as it turns out, “Paranormal Activity”. AND what a scary, good time it was.

Done with a super-low budget, it pretends to be a true story and is shot entirely inside a modern house in sunny Southern California. Something is bothering a couple. At night, it moves things, stomps up and down hallways, opens and closes doors. Writer/Director Oren Peli understands horror. He knows exactly what effects/tricks can scare the you-know-what out of you…and it’s primarily done through the suddenness of it – not just because the event is scary. The psychology of fright says we can deal with what we can see. It’s what we can’t or don’t see that is frightening. The movie subtly hammers you senseless.
A young couple named Micah and Katie come to believe she is being haunted. In fact, Katie thinks she's been haunted most of her life and Micah is just now being introduced to this scary, troubled side of Katie's life. So, from the beginning, the Director wisely eliminates one element of haunted house movies that usually frustrates the viewer. Most ghost story movies never answer the question – if the house is so haunted, why not just leave the house? In “Paranormal Activity”, it's not the house, it's the girl who’s haunted, and leaving will get them nowhere. So, Katie is haunted by “something.” To prove it and try to figure out what it is and what it wants, Micah sets up a camera which is left on while they try to sleep in their bedroom. The entire film is seen from the perspective of this camera, giving the viewer the impression that they're watching some horrific surveillance video from hell.
I enjoyed the pace as it slowly builds the tension throughout the film and then breaks it with the next even scarier encounter, thus ratcheting up the suspense and terror. I haven't experienced a night at the movies like this in quite a while…it gave me chills and goosebumps, and made the hair on the back of my neck stand-up. Others in the theatre were screaming, laughing, crying and gasping, and there was one guy in the back who every 10 minutes or so cried out for a cigarette.
“Paranormal Activity” is a phenomenal achievement…it’s a really scary movie.
Clark

NOTES: it was filmed in one week for $15,000 and grossed $9.1 million in its first week in the US, breaking the record of highest-grossing weekend ever for a movie playing at less than 200 theaters ( It has grossed as of Nov.1, $84.6 Million dollars !!!!). The director filmed the whole movie in his own home. He got the idea for the movie from a personal experience. Late at night he was sleeping and a box of detergent fell off the shelf. The box was pushed too far back for it to just tilt and fall. AND, guess what….there will be a sequel.