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| Rated: 4.83/5 | Votes: 6 | Views: 375 |Submitted: 10/15/09 |
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PARANORMAL ACTIVITY Review
by Heather Wixson Starring Katie Featherstone, Micah Sloat Directed by Oren Peli Distributed by Paramount Pictures I think it's slightly ironic that ten years after THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT stormed both theaters and the pop culture lexicon we get a new entry into the low-budget indie horror genre with Oren Peli's PARANORMAL ACTIVITY. Can the latter film hold its own against the original horror mock-doc? Definitely. In PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, we meet the young couple of Katie and Micah who are being troubled by a spirit who visits them while they sleep. Katie comes clean to Micah about her supernatural visits after a visit from a psychic- it turns out that this is a problem that has plagued her since she was young. Micah decides that in order to effectively investigate the supernatural entity, he needs to continuously film around the house, and while the couple is sleeping. What happens while they sleep turns out to be far more terrifying than anyone could have expected, as the evil force grows stronger around them. There's been a lot of hype over PARANORMAL ACTIVITY over the last several weeks and I pretty much had chalked that up to an effective viral campaign as well as the "Demand PARANORMAL ACTIVITY" campaign dreamt up over at Paramount. Working in horror, you tend to be a little skeptical of truly "scary" movies so when I finally had a chance to check out the film, I came away extremely satisfied as a horror fan. PARANORMAL ACTIVITY takes the BLAIR WITCH formula and improves on it tenfold with a film that is supremely chilling and jolting. I don't even think I breathed for the last ten minutes. As the movie rolls on, the supernatural (or demonic) activity gets more intense, leading up to one of the best horror film endings in the last several years. if you sit through PARANORMAL ACTIVITY and don't jump, then you must be part machine because in my completely sold out screening, the entire audience reacted to the film. I audibly screamed twice and I haven't done that since THE DESCENT. While there isn't much to compliment director Peli on in terms of "direction" since the entire film is shot on a handheld camera by Micah, what I will commend him on is creating a haunting masterpiece of independent horror on a shoestring budget that will no doubt be the new game-changer in terms of indie horror flicks. The mock-doc style definitely works as a compliment to the story of PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, moreso I think than it did for BLAIR WITCH. If you are looking for some great scares in the theater this Halloween season, PARANORMAL ACTIVITY is definitely the flick to check out. If the film goes even wider, I think it stands a good chance of dethroning Jigsaw as the King of Halloween Horror this year. 4 out of 5 |
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