The Movie
Remember the surprise success of a little movie called The Blair Witch Project, which purported to chronicle the approaching doom upon some innocents-with-a-video-camera? Of course you do. Remember Blair Witch 2, the forced sequel which sought to recapture lightning in a bottle and spawn that elusive commodity, a hot horror franchise? Of course you don't.
Which brings us to Paranormal Activity, and more to the point last year's disappointing follow-up, Paranormal Activity 2. Too minimalist to be a traditional horror film, and too hokey to be credible as a faux documentary, it just kind of lies there for much of its running time, without much happening. I was reminded of Poltergeist, by stark contrast, which made the effort to ensure that even the non-scary parts were extremely entertaining.
The story begins when a family brings home their newborn son, and soon after they suffer an apparent break-in. Their belongings are strewn everywhere with a lot of damage, but strangely almost none of their valuables have been taken, and neither was the room of their baby boy disturbed. Security cameras are installed, picking up where the family's conveniently extensive self-videotaping leaves off. (The movie is an assemblage of the various videos.)
Curiouser and curiouser, unexplained events continue to escalate, and the teenaged daughter does some internet research, first suspecting a ghostly haunting, but could it be a demon instead? Unfortunately, the tone is either way too subtle (a light just turned off by itself! they'd better run!) or a bit too blatant (as the characters put the subtext into pedantic dialogue) for me to become sufficiently involved.
The disc contains both the R-rated theatrical and Unrated Director's Cut (seven minutes longer) of the movie.
Also check out Joe Lozito's review of Paranormal Activity 2.
The Picture
Yes, the entire 1.78:1 movie was shot on video, and is intended to look like it, but through dialogue we learn that the family's camcorder is HD, and certain well-lit, static shots offer clear, excellent focus. There is however terrible strobing and loss of detail in quick camera moves.
The Sound
The accompanying DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track exhibits the sort of distortion typical to home videos: the unwanted reflectivity from the walls and the clipped dynamic range when people raise their voices. (My wife, in another room, actually thought I was watching someone's home movies.) There are plenty of quiet stretches, all the better to scare us with the sonic jolts, which tend to be you-are-there realistic for even greater impact.
There might be an ominous bass rumble or an outright thump, but except for some directionality to the paranormal action and occasional background/neighborhood noises, there's very little conspicuous surround audio. The movie is also working with a handicap in that it contains no music.
The Extras
The so-called "Found Footage" edits together more security cam and camcorder clips, just a few minutes, in HD. It all plays like a deleted sequence, but doesn't really jibe with the events from the movie. Disc Two is a hybrid DVD containing the unrated Paranormal Activity 2 in standard definition plus a Digital Copy for either iTunes or Windows Media.
Final Thoughts
To be fair, this doesn't happen a lot, but I'd pretty much given up before the last few minutes of the film, and then it did indeed become scary, with a creepy-as-hell ending that made up for a lot of sins (or lack thereof) along the way. It probably would have been even more effective had I been familiar with the first movie--2 is a prequel of sorts, with the main characters there making cameos here--so fans of the original will likely want to catch up with their earlier Activity.
Product Details
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