Movie Review: Paranormal Activity

Watched this last night…

It was probably one of the scarier movies I’ve seen in a really long time.  I’m a big chicken when it comes to scary movies… BUT, everyone else was screaming in the theater, too.

It did indeed have that Blair Witch VHS-effect to it, but unlike Blair Witch, I thought this was done pretty well.  The guy character was really annoying, but I think that was the point.  I’m trying not to give anything away!  What made it scarier for me than anything else though is that there was nothing visibly scary… for instance, lots of scary movies use gruesome make-up/costume to create crazy characters that pop out of nowhere with scary music in the background.  I’m pretty sure this movie had NO music, except the dude playing his guitar… you could see stuff happening without really seeing what was causing it to happen… as if you were there watching it with your own eyes and not as a 3rd party observer outside of the story [I don't think that makes sense at all].  There wasn’t the scary image flash of something creepy like a lot of movies either… it was static noise, silence, creeking, footsteps, movements… you obviously knew something was there but you couldn’t see it.  I got a couple body chills through the movie too and not in a good way — it was super creepy.  Oh, and the ending… good, but I couldn’t bring myself to actually watch the images directly.  It’s kinda like that one scene from The Exorcist where the girl crawls (if you can even call it that?) upside down and backwards down the stairs; that was burned into my head for weeks, I could NOT get that out of my head.  I was not about to be stuck with something like that again!

I thought it was definitely Halloween worthy.

One other thing that made the movie scarier for me… I was sitting at the end of our group and this dude decides to rudely walk across our entire row just to sit down next to me.  The theater was NOT packed at all.  I wasn’t totally offended by this except for the fact that he smelled.  Smelled really bad.  I thought I could handle it, but then he kept wanting to chat… how am I? when does the movie start?  Then I grabbed my drink just in time for him to start fluffing his dread-locked hair… I got up and left.  My friend came with me and we did a pseudo-bathroom trip and sat down at the OTHER end of our group so that I was in an aisle seat.  That’s all good and fine except that after the movie started I was paranoid that he would get up and sit behind me since he clearly knew we ditched him.  He INDEED did get up, walked all the way across our row again… passed by us, went outside briefly, came back in and sat behind us!!!!!  But, it was a few seats down — we’re pretty sure it was right next to another group of people in the row above us.  I felt sorry for the girl he was sitting next to because I’m pretty sure I got a few whiffs of him even then.  That whole thing gave me some added anxiety throughout the movie.  He was clearly drunk or on something else.

Also, the movie was NOT based on true events… and Thank God.