|
.jpg) “Paranormal Activity” is the type of film that comes along once in a generation. It’s a film that is meticulously planned and phenomenally executed. It’s less of a film and more of experience; your ability to tell someone that you’ve sat through it without closing your eyes is a badge of honor.
Writer/Director Oren Peli takes advantage of the most quietly terrifying aspect of human existence; sleep. When we sleep, anything can happen. It’s a time when our guard is truly down and our ability to stop things from happening is nonexistent. If there was something out there plotting to do us harm, sleep would be the perfect time to do almost anything to us without warning.
Peli’s film takes place in a non-descript house with characters who act like you or me, making the fear real, but also not limited to the theater screen. When you go to sleep at night is where the real fun begins, because the film makes you acutely aware of the things that go bump in the night.
As the film begins, we learn that Katie and Micah have been experiencing unexplainable things since moving in with each other a short while ago. Micah buys the camera in which we will see their entire journey. He hopes of capturing the strange activity on tape. The camera is not only our eyes and ears for the events that happen to Katie and Micah, but also a point of contention for them. Micah doesn’t really take the strange happenings seriously, using the camera to prove to Katie that nothing can harm them. His constant use of the camera quickly drives Katie crazy as she is fearful of what is out there and wants Micah’s help, not the camera.
So Micah sets up the camera while they sleep, shooting their bedroom and discovering what may be in their house with them.
This is the first film I can remember where I was afraid of a camera shot. Whenever Micah sets the camera up on the bedroom’s tripod, this sense of fear settled in my body. The scary stuff in the film is confined to the bedroom at night, right? So that shot tells us that something bad is going to happen. Whenever that shot appeared on screen, it was a signal to hold on tight.
But then the film does something smart. It breaks all of the rules it had set up for itself. I’m not going to get into spoilers here, but the film pulls the rug out from under the viewer step by step. What constants you think you have begin to disappear, leaving only fear.
What I found so compelling about “Paranormal Activity” is not only the scary parts, which are expertly done, but the relationship between Micah and Katie, particularly how Micah reacts to Katie’s fear. He does love her and at the end of the day, he wants to protect her, but how he does it is fueling Katie’s fear. Their relationship is stuck in a spiral, Micah being who he is, but hammering the one chord that Katie can’t stand.
“Paranormal Activity” has an excellent mix of jump-scares and creepy moments. How the film works on each viewer may be up to each viewer’s fears. Some people might find this film to be painfully un-scary and downright boring. But, alas, I find ghosts, demons and the paranormal to be somewhat creepy, so “Paranormal Activity” scared me quite a bit.
|
.jpg){kind=small}
