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Feature article
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‘Paranormal Activity’ as terrifying as it is fun
By Lane Blevins
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“Paranormal Activity”
3 stars (out of 4)
STARRING:Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat
DIRECTED BY:Oren Peli
RATED: R for language
RUNNING TIME: 1 hour and 36 minutes
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Now here is a marvelous tale from Tinseltown. “Paranormal Activity” is a completely independent horror picture with an astoundingly low $13,000 production budget. Viral marketing and internet polls finally drove the film to a wide market, pulling in about 30 million its first weekend. It’s a real life fairy tale.
The best part is – it’s not all hype. This film is as terrifying as it is fun.
“Paranormal Activity” follows the same format as 90s overnight indie sensation “The Blair Witch Project.” The film is billed as being confiscated police footage from a murder case investigation in San Diego.
The couple on the tape – Micah and Katie – decided to start filming themselves while they sleep, after waking up on several occasions to strange noises throughout the house. The film is cut together like a highlight reel, detailing the strange events that befell the couple.
I had become bored with the “found footage” method of shooting. “Quarantine” was the straw that broke the camels back for me. But “Paranormal Activity” made it fun again. Mainly, it was all in the execution (with the exception of a few spots).
You come to know the characters through candid, flirtatious scenes – all of it captured through the lens of Micah’s home video recorder. And then… unbelievable things began to happen.
I grew up terrified of the paranormal. But these days, reason tells me the evidence isn’t there, despite how badly I may want it to be. Still, “Paranormal Activity” sold me with its suspenseful construction and made me forget for a brief time that I don’t believe in ghosts.
The filmmakers were able to create a wonderfully frightening atmosphere, which made every mundane thing – a door slamming, lights flickering – completely eerie. It was so much fun.
I saw this movie in a theater full of the world’s worst movie audience…high school freshmen. I sat in my chair and lamented my luck that I had somehow come out to the movies on universal date night.
I thought for sure I would never be able to hear the movie for all the gabbing. But the audience was great! They were all slinking down in their chairs and crying out legitimate screams of fright.
The actors portraying the couple were extremely talented. Apparently, the director (Oren Peli) chose the pair after an extensive casting process. He settled on Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat when he noticed the chemistry they were able to generate after knowing each other for only a couple of minutes.
Peli’s excellent casting pays off throughout the film. I believed this pair was a real couple. In fact, at the time I thought Micah was the film’s director and his onscreen girlfriend was his wife in reality. This was not so…
“Paranormal Activity” isn’t a masterpiece in the grand scheme of cinema. At times, it feels like it needs to have some more fat trimmed off onto the cutting room floor and some sequences are (unintentionally) silly. However, it most certainly IS a masterpiece when you take into account it was shot for thirteen grand in the director’s own house.
Catch this movie while it is in the theater. It is suited to a big crowd, big screen, and big sound. Take a friend to clutch. This movie will remind you how fun it is to be scared to death by things that go bump in the night. 3 out of 4 stars.
--------GoTriCities--------
Lane Blevins is an aspiring filmmaker. E-mail him at the-hour@hotmail.com.
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