Review of Paranormal Activity (2007) by Bradley C — 11 Sep 2013

Paranormal Activity, one of the many supernatural movies spit out in the last ten years. The movie is about a couple in a home and the home being paranormally active, hence the title Paranormal Activity.

The first part of the movie starts out with little to no activity, leading a build-up of suspense and anxiety, having the audience crying out for something to happen already. The movie was directed by Oren Peli, in his own home, in seven days.

One might prejudge the film with the knowledge of that fact as a crappy movie. The movie did fairly well though, and kept much of the audience on their feet. A movie made in seven days cannot be filmed that well though.

With the low budget and period the film was recorded in can only point to unknown actors being used, unfortunately they were not prodigies waiting to happen. At times the movie felt so fake and staged, something that scared them would be something ignored in real life.

The movie in all was somewhat of an insult and the start of a downward spiral to the scary films industry. Like Henry Ford created an assembly line to make a car in a day, Peli created an easy line up for a scary film, and filmed it in seven days.

Scary movies use to take for-ever just to set up, with all the costumes and scary back grounds. For example, the classic Thirteen Ghosts was a traumatic experience for many people, the director even tried to implement 3D with color splicing in the camera to make the ghosts pop out, way before anyone even attempted making 3D films.

The scary films industry use to be innovative and actually scary. When Paranormal Activity came out it was an insult, a monster you cannot see or stop, just an intangible being reeking havoc on some poor family.

It took seven days to make this film because there was not much effort, no innovative special effects, no new ideas, just a ghost. A lot of people liked this film and were actually "scared" by it.

But in reality the only time someone jumps while watching this movie is when there is a loud noise, they were not scared, they were startled. This movie was the start of a new genre, Startling movies.

A lot of people agree too, and as the paranormal series progresses Peli loses more and more fans as he essentially copies the movie to make a sequel. Over all this movie had a big response, but just because it was popular does not mean it was innovative or good.

The movie deserves a rating of 6/10 and that's generous.