Paranormal Activity: Only $15,000 to Make It? You Don’t Say.

Spoiler alert: You’ll probably be annoyed by the production quality of Paranormal Activity more than the ending I’ll spoil in this post. You’ve officially been warned of both.

I am not a fan of the low-budget, camcorder style of the movie Paranormal Activity. Furthermore, I’m not a fan of having had to endure so much of nothing BUT low-budget cinematography at the beginning of the film while it took its sweet time getting to the point.

This film had, what, four actors? Three of whom aren’t noticeably bad? That scene in which the psychic simply must leave because he’s angering the whatever-it-is felt like watching a middle school play in which the actor arrives, looks awkward, sounds awkward, and exits the stage. Audience wonders if there was a point to that. But I’ve consulted the all-knowing and always-trustworthy Wikipedia and been informed that there was no script. So now that scene makes sense in that the actor looked like he was flying by the seat of his pants because he was. And not everybody is cut out for “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” Certainly not a guy with just three credits to his name. Sorry, Mark Fredrichs.

Which brings me to my next observation: Oren Peli didn’t bother naming his characters. Katie is played by Katie. Micah is played by Micah. Amber is played by Amber. And Dr. Fredrichs is played by Mark Fredrichs. Very creative. Oh, wait. There WAS a fifth actor. Diana is played by Ashley Palmer, which tells me it would’ve been too hard to recognize “Ashley” if spelled by a Ouija board from their camera angle. Not that we could see what was being spelled out—we just took Micah’s word for it that it wasn’t “candy bar” or “marshmallow” or something similarly delicious and non-threatening.

But what a fun trip down memory lane to watch for an hour and twenty-six minutes how we wanted our homes decorated just one decade ago. Rear-projection TVs. Enormous furniture. The latest in ten-pound laptops. Looks like Peli has a nice home, since he shot it there, saving a couple more nickels and getting a home reno in the process. Clever.

So was it scary? I thought so. I mean, the sounds and footsteps did nothing for me, but when Katie gets out of bed and just stands there FOR TWO HOURS, that was scary. Especially when she left the room for God-knows-where. Micah, though, when he notices she’s gone, stops to pick up the camera while he searches for her. Glad you weren’t too worried, there Micah. I’ll be real sorry when your arrogant self-involved got-this-under-control ass dies later. *ahem*

I notice he didn’t make that mistake twice though, because when he vaults out of bed after Katie’s second stand-and-stare scene, and to be fair she IS screaming bloody murder this time, he leaves the camera where it sits. Consequently, Katie had to throw Micah’s lifeless body at the camera so we’d know what took place. Guess the demon wanted it on the recording, otherwise it’s not really clear why possessed Katie had to bring him back upstairs and throw him at the camera—it was solely for the audience’s benefit, I guess. Not actually scary.

When the bedsheets moved—that was scary. When the thing dragged Katie out of bed and down the hallway—that was really effing scary. But when she’s sitting in the hall squeezing a literally bloody cross and it’s clear she’s been possessed, I really didn’t care what happened after that. And the stand-and-stare trick only worked on me the first time. We crossed the too-stupid-to-live point when they didn’t call the demonologist, so I could wash my hands of someone who didn’t want to leave when it got ridiculously bad. I know why they don’t call in the other professional, though, and it’s not that Micah “has it under control” or is afraid it’ll get worse at that point—he clearly IS hell-bent on making it worse if he can. It’s just that Peli doesn’t want to hire another actor, so no demonologist.

Could I watch it alone? Yeah. And I still consider myself a wimp about these things. On a 1 to 10 scariness scale, 1 being The Care Bears and 10 being the middle-of-the-night features produced by my own brain when I’m under the influence of Benadryl, I’d give this a 5. Most of what’s scary here is just that we’re hard-wired to be afraid of monsters messing with us while we’re asleep, and that’s what’s played up most in this film.

Paranormal Activity. Dir. Oren Peli. Perf. Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat. Paramount/DreamWorks, 2009. DVD.