Movie Review: Paranormal

Friday night I went to see the movie "Paranormal Activity" by myself. I'd never heard of this movie until I looked at the movie listings for the weekend before. Always on the lookout for a GOOD horror movie I found a trailer.

My first reaction: This looks like it's actually scary.
My second reaction: Yummy can't go see this.

Since Yummy wasn't coming over Friday night I went. I was not disappointed.

I should tell you what I look for in horror movies. "Halloween", "Friday the 13th", "Nightmare on Elm Street", "Saw", these movies are crap. "The Ring", "The Others", things that are actually suspenseful and generate fear instead of nausea from the gore or quick and easy scares from things jumping at you, that's what I want in a horror movie.

A good way to judge a scary movie is from the amount of talking during the movie. People talk more when they get scared. It's a defense reaction. There was a lot of talking during this movie.

An engaged to be engaged couple move in together. Soon after strange things start to happen. She explains that she's haunted. It comes and goes. In the 3 years they've been dating it's been away. Now it's back. The boyfriend buys a video camera to watch the house for strange activity in order to prove there's something strange going on and it's not their imagination.

That's where our movie starts. He's running the camera as she comes home.

The story gets spelled out fairly well. We meet the players, tour the house, hear her story, then the camera gets set up in the bedroom and things start to happen. Long, but not too long, shots from the camera on a tripod build suspense as the viewer tries to watch the whole screen at once for a moving shadow or a flutter of the curtain. Little things at first. Deep thumping sounds at two in the morning. A door that moves by itself. Before long... well, it's a haunted house.

I highly recommend this movie, but I recommend even more watching it in small groups.