Paranormal Activity

[Kashagi]

Just went and saw this movie in the cinema, the only knowledge being from a magazine article, but the idea sounded interesting.

I have always felt that horror comes not from the amount of gore in a film, but in use of light, sound and suspense. Its clear that the former is very provident in mainstream horror these days.

I was quite suprised with this movie, I wasnt sure what to expect, but it ticked all three boxes of what I like to see in a horror movie, so many false starts, no background music, which makes the use of silence really nice at points, and all in all, a slow build up of suspense.. With the supernatural elements getting gradually stronger over time leading to the big climax. Not only that, but the movie used a good premise that all audience would be familiar with, bumps in the night. Something that everyone can relate to and I can imagine a fair few people remembering the movie whenever they hear a creak in bed or whatever.

Thats not to say the movie is perfect, it had plenty of problems.. Such as the slightly amused feeling I got about halfway through when I noticed the movie uses so many little cliches

SPOILERS

Creaking door, tv turned on, footprints from an invisible presence, the ending.

SPOILERS OVER

And then there is the ending.. Which I am not sure what to think about, without giving it away, its a very hollywood ending, though I should say the buildup immediatelly before it was excellent, and I will greatly compliment that half of the actions in the ending are seen off camera, which was done very well.

But the ending just seemed very corny, and since hearing it was changed upon entering cinema, I am curious to see the original endings just to see how it fares. They certainly sound a tad more interesting, at least one of them does..

Perhaps the most entertaining aspect for me was the audience, I hear one of the strong selling points provided to push the film to cinema was audience reactions. And although you do get the pricks to yell out smart ass things because they are so tough, it was also interesting to watch the legitimately scared people, including real screams, and holding each other, not looking etc. Of course these people may be easily frightened, but I have never seen it in a cinema and it was a very nice atmosphere to be in.

I enjoyed the movie, although its certainly not the scariest movie of all time like it claims, its the best horror film I have seen in a cinema for quite a long time, what are your thoughts?

 

[HBK-aholic]

I'll probably have spoilers in my post, so if you don't want to know them, don't read it.

I absolutely loved this film. I never thought I'd scream in a cinema, but I did while watching the ending of this film. It was so simply done, I don't think it'd have worked if it was a big budget Hollywood-type film. It starts off slowly, but it also has just enough of the little cliches you mentioned to keep me entertained throughout. The ending was great. There are 3 different endings I'm told, so I'm not sure which you saw, but I saw the one where she kills him, looks into the camera in a very freaky way, and then disappears, with the writing at the end stating "Katies whereabouts are currently unknown". My friends and I left the cinema and we were looking for her in the shops. We then realised we didn't need to be scared because our house didn't burn down when we were 8 so she can't possess us. We hope, anyway.

 

[Dagger Dias]

I realy enjoyed this movie because it was well done and they kept building the suspense the entire time. I'm not going to go into huge details, to avoid spoilers. The only issue I had with it was that I did not like the ending. However, I liked the movie and wouldn't mind seeing it again.

 

[Cena's Little Helper]

I saw this movie twice. The first time, I thought it was decent. The second time, it sucked major ass. Why, you ask? Because it was made on a minuscule budget, and it showed. It might be the case that the movie had no effect on me the second time I saw it, but, I wasn't really paying attention when I first saw it (rather, I was thinking about how great of a night I'd have with my scared-shitless girlfriend...man, I love taking women to horror movies).

When it comes to scary films, nothing beats Gore Verbinski's Ring remake, Takashi Miike's One Missed Call, or Michael Mann's Manhunter. Now, those are some scary films! For those who haven't seen Paranormal Activity yet, you will probably be extremely disappointed when you actually do see it; it's just as over-hyped as The Blair Witch Project was back in 1999. I'm not saying you need to have a blockbuster budget to make a supernatural horror film; but, you sure as shit need at least a million dollars to make a good one.

 

[Dave]

It is a pretty good movie, I think.

I have seen the movie twice now and in full length. Personally, I think that the movie is so good because it is quite simple. As Becca said, this movie would not have been as good if they tried to give it all the fancy extras that are so prevalent in cinema right now. What I think is great is that the movies that have made huge profits in the last few years have been so simple and cheap to make. Look at Borat, Bruno and Paranormal Activity. These movies have cost thousands to make and have turned over millions upon millions. Paranormal Activity was filmed in the director's house right? My point being that there seems to be hope yet for cinema if small-time film-makers are being given the chance to make a hugely popular movie. With a good concept and the right people on board anything is possible.

Personally, I though that this movie was incredible. The cast were convincing and the story was pretty intriguing. I was pretty let down by then ending at first but the more I watched it, the more I realised that it was actually a good ending to fit the movie.

 

[TLC]

Its not a bad movie in my opinion but its nothing great. It did scare me especially the ending but England got a much better ending compared to the americans which may be the reason that they wasn't as scared. Our's was fucking scary. My friend almost had an asthma attack afterwards which I found pretty funny.

It does get a little boring in the middle when nothing much happened but when it did I was very into it. The cast was good even though there was so little of them. It goes to show you can make a pretty decent movie with little budget.

 

[Kashagi]

Why on earth do you need a bigger budget to make a good horror? Why is it necessary? The movie looked realistic enough. I never got the impression the budget was low, and the cheap camera work was obviously one of the gimmicks of the movie, it worked very well.

I just dont understand why you think a good horror needs a bigger budget, one of the all time classic horrors Halloween was created on a very small budget, and not only that but alot of the sum was simply to pay for Donald Pleasance. Look at the masterpiece that movie turned out to be.

And I live in Australia, but from what has been said, it sounds like we got the ending that some of you are talking about, the jump out ending?

 

[Cena's Little Helper]

Why on earth do you need a bigger budget to make a good horror? Why is it necessary? The movie looked realistic enough. I never got the impression the budget was low, and the cheap camera work was obviously one of the gimmicks of the movie, it worked very well.

I just dont understand why you think a good horror needs a bigger budget, one of the all time classic horrors Halloween was created on a very small budget, and not only that but alot of the sum was simply to pay for Donald Pleasance. Look at the masterpiece that movie turned out to be.

And I live in Australia, but from what has been said, it sounds like we got the ending that some of you are talking about, the jump out ending?

You want to bring in some proof for your assertion that Halloween was made on a small budget? It was made for $320,000 back in 1978, which would be more than a million dollars today when we adjust for inflation. Paranormal Activity was made for about $15,000, and it showed. Wow! They got a ouija board to move without anyone around and they used subwoofers on the ground to make it sound like there were ghosts in the house.

Good horror can be made on a small budget (I'd say somewhere around $200K-$350K), but there must be competent filmmakers behind the camera to unleash the audience's imagination. There was nothing ambiguous about Paranormal Activity; there was some evil spirit chasing around the female protagonist, and that's all there really was to it. For such a trite and shit premise, why couldn't I have a little eye candy? Or at least some visual tricks?

 

[Irish Kenton]

This movie, in my eyes, was a fail. It took to long for something interesting to happen. It was like watching paint dry. I felt this movie was far too over-hyped. The only scene I thought was interesting was when the girl is pulled from her bed.
This movie completely failed to scare me. A few months ago I sat down and watched [Rec*] which was by far one of the best horror movies I have seen in years.
Since I was a child I have always been interested in the paranormal and I expected Paranormal Activity to be a great movie because it covers a particular interest of mine. But the slow development of the movie caused me to loose interest by about 40 minutes into it.
I found this movie to be more of a comedy than a horror as no scene in this movie scared me or made me jump. Big snore.
But hey that's just my opinion and my rant =)

 

[Cookie]

I liked it. I thought it was a really effective horror film that brought back shades of the old standard while utilizing the new(er) POV horror. I think what I liked best is that both characters represented two different responses to the situation and I feel like most people watching would generally fall under one or the other. Micah being the logical and rational one and is genuinely curious about figuring this out, and Katie who represents a more paranoid, superstitious perspective. I also liked that they weren't the typical stupid characters you see in movies that get themselves killed because they decide to answer the door in the middle of the night or walk through a corn field by themselves or something. I mean that not only makes it more realistic, but it makes you actually give a shit (or at least I did) about the characters because they have the ability to actually deal with the situation and you're almost rooting for them to figure it out before the negativity consumes them. I also think plot-wise, they did a pretty good job of steering away from huge plot holes and they seemed to have an answer for everything, which kept me saying "what do they do NOW?" They couldn't just pick up and move. And hell, it was a great use of resources by director Oren Peli. I liked it but I would hope even those who didn't could at least throw it a bone and say that it was an engaging film, which is a lot more than some of the horror movies big studios are churning out.

 

[lenguy]

It was alright, hardly scary like some people say. Tho it was suspenseful but hardly scary. I was rather disappointed with the whole film. It didnt live up to expectations as one of the supposed "scariest movies of the past decade" The only moment that i thought was disturbing was the ending, i thought that was some freaky shit. Not saying it was a terrible movie, it just wasent scary like a lot of people say it is

 

[krispix]

During my winter break from college, I watched this at around midnight with my father and my 16 year old brother.

While my father and I were cracking up at Micah's arrogant bravado, my brother clinged to me more and more as we approached the end. I yelped when Micah was hurled at the camera out of sheer surprise, but I wasn't so frightened that I couldn't sleep. My expectations were high because of my friends' hype ("I couldn't sleep alone after I saw it"), and although it didn't meet my desired scare factor, I still enjoyed it.

The film maker was incredibly clever to use suggestion and to scare audiences with what they couldn't see. Often times our imaginations are so much worse than the gory images we can be presented with. Fun movie, but I wouldn't watch it again.

Halloween is still my favorite low-budget horror flick. I've seen it tons of times and I still scream. That's real repeat power.