Scariest Movie of All Time?... I'd Say No.

'Paranormal Activity'

Review: 2.5/5

Maybe I'm a victim of a superfluous marketing campaign that made insincere promises about the tonal gravity of Oren Peli's 'Paranormal Activity'. Or maybe the film authentically is more than a bit tedious. Observing the film's protagonists Micah and Katie biding their time at home, busying themselves with talk of a demonic presence that's haunted Katie since she was eight years old, does not at all build tension. It builds frustration and provides the film with an ongoing anticipatory nature that never satisfies the spectator's desire to be genuinely scared.

During the film's overstayed exposition (it lasts more than twenty minutes in a ninety minute film), Micah and his girlfriend Katie, who are unusually agoraphobic for some reason, discuss the demonic presence ad-nauseam in a monotonous 'chit-chat' manner. This is, of course, when they're not conversing about Micah's consistent use of the camera, providing the audience with his point of view throughout the prolonged daytime sequences that merely amount to the inevitable bedtime scenes, which linger for far too long, consistently with an unsatisfying result (after the first twenty minutes... a door slams shut. Terrifying). Yet, these night sequences, which are viewed through a static camera with a 'night-vision setting,' I will admit, are a bit unnerving. Why the director chose to utilize these scenes to create an unnecessary, eventual sort of expectation, I do not know, since the film never offers any form of fulfillment.

The faux-documentary conceit is supposed to, I'm assuming, add a level of false realism to the film. This phony 'reality' is plagued by the continuing perspective of the camera. For the majority of the film, we are to believe that we're looking though Micah's point of view, but there are various scenes that follow Micah while Katie's in another room. Who's holding the camera? The so-called 'reality' is compromised in an arbitrary attempt to build tension. And this tension amounts to (SPOILER ALERT): slammed doors, a swinging chandelier, a broken picture frame, and grating off-screen noise. These elements could very well produce tension and fear, if only they were to add up to a rewarding climax.