Arts & Culture
Review: “Paranormal Activity” just in time for Halloween
The Pointer
nmeye177@uwsp.edu
In an exhausted horror movie market where blood and gore have taken over for old fashion suspense, “Paranormal Activity,” stands alone as the most frightening movie I’ve seen in years. Its not the “I have to look away because this is so gruesome,” type of horror our generation has grown up on. The movie wins no points for shock value. With minimalist tactics, writer and director Oren Peli brings out the fear that is already inside us, scene by scene, with a hand held camera.
Over the weekend, I sat in theater four at Rogers Campus Cinema with about 30 other moviegoers to see if this movie would indeed terrify me. The way the commercial is being played, about every five seconds, it’s hard to ignore the grainy home -movie-style footage as it’s placed between scenes of “Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia.” I admit at first I was skeptical, but by the end of the movie, and by the end of the night, it was pretty apparent that sleep was going to be a chore after what I would call an exhausting movie experience.
The movie follows the format laid before by movies like “The Blair Witch Project” and “Cloverfield,” introducing the film from the get go as being “found footage” to give a gloss of realism. The movie actually begins with a thank you to the Ranchos Penasquitos Police Department and the families of Micah Sloat and Katie Featherston, the main characters of the movie and the real names of the actors.
With the “this is real” seed thoroughly planted, the movie begins to follow the lives of Micah and Katie as they deal with paranormal phenomena that has been following Katie since she was a small girl. Micah, who hasn’t had to deal with this before, takes the antagonistic route in dealing with the phenomena. Throughout the movie he goes on ignoring all of the warnings dealt out by a ghost specialist and also by Katie. As Micah’s hostility escalates, so do the paranormal happenings, and sleep becomes impossible for the couple.
The acting of Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat is unnervingly real. At points you seem to feel what Katie feels: breathing on her neck in the night, unknown eyes following her every move. The actors do all the filming in the movie and this is what truly engulfs the audience into the lives of Micah and Katie. We are there with them for every hair raising moment in the house, creating a terrifying claustrophobia effect of being unable to escape. As they got more sleep deprived, everyone in the theater looked more and more exhausted.
The acting elevates the suggestive nature of the film. Rather than show anything, Peli uses shadows and simplistic happenings to create true terror. It’s the little things that put you on the edge of your seat. An unattributed shadow moves across the door, or a bed sheet gets lifted by nothing. Throughout the movie it’s not what you see, it’s what you don’t see. It’s the blank areas that your mind is forced to fill in that keep you from breathing.
The ending doesn’t disappoint, offering just enough to make your mind assume the fetal position. It surely was enough to bring the whole theater out of their chairs, as the loudest scream of the night in theater four came right at the end of the movie.
Paranormal Activity has taken the country by storm, three years after Peli filmed it in just seven days in his San Diego home. Costing Peli only $15,000 to make; the movie has already grossed more than $62 million. The makers of all sleep-aids should thank Peli for this film and the fear of what will happen after you fall asleep that it creates.
