Paranormal Activity
Having spent two years in production and licence-limbo, Oren Peli’s Paranormal Activity is a unique entry in the newly-coined Found Footage genre, which takes advantage of POV shots and jump edits to deliver a realistic and limited perspective of a film’s events; normally employed to give a sense of claustrophobia and of being involved within the scenes.
The film follows Katie and Micah, a well-off couple in San Diego, CA., as they encounter spiritual and paranormal activity over a period of three weeks. The attacks begin in tame fashion, with walls being tapped and other strange goings on bringing out emotional reactions in Katie, who it is revealed has a history with similar activity, having attracted such phenomena since the age of 8.
The film’s latter scenes certainly work well in providing enough jump scares for the audience to delight in, and special effects create an eerily realistic sense of entrapment for the inexperienced couple, upon whom the haunting clearly take effect. For relative newcomers to the professional acting stage, Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat do a decent job of portraying the ordeal they are put through by the ongoing activity though Sloat’s tone of voice and inability to scare easily means he doesn’t always come across as the right man for the job; often laughing at or teasing his girlfriend for being haunted by a demon.
Two scenes in particular stood out as potential film ruiners, namely the nod to The Exorcist and the film’s ridiculous finale, in which common sense doesn’t seem to be involved when it comes to the policemen who arrive on the scene.
However, these are not enough to ruin what is in fact a very decent film. On a shoestring budget, Oren Peli has managed to piece together a Blair Witch Project-esque which has already had a significant impact on the Independent film circuit and will undoubtedly prove a hit on the mass market scene. Use of the handheld camera is never overused and the audience is always kept in the loop regarding the film’s key moments, meaning the pieces in the puzzle are all there for the audience to enjoy. Add to this that Sloat and Featherston combine to make a realistic and likeable couple on-screen, and Paranorma l Activity proves a solid and genuinely engaging (for the most part) hit.
8/10
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