Friday, October 23, 2009

Recommended: "Paranormal Activity"


Last night I went to the 11:55 showing of the new horror movie Paranormal Activity. I've got to say, this is probably the scariest film I have seen since The Blair Witch Project.

The movie is about a couple who have had some strange happenings in their house lately--unexplained noises, things being moved, etc.--so the boyfriend, Micah (pronounced "Meekah," which is pretty stupid) decides to buy a video camera in order to hopefully capture the source of these disturbances. The couple sets up the camera in their bedroom when they go to bed at night, and that is when things start to get interesting (in a paranormal way, that is). The entire movie is seen from the perspective of that camera (note that it isn't in the bedroom entire time) over the course of several weeks.

You may not have heard much about this movie because it was initially released in a very limited number of theaters before finally getting a wide release a few weeks ago. You can read more about it on Wikipedia, but I suggest not doing that until after you see the movie. While I am tempted to write more about it, but I don't want to give too much away. I will say that if you are as skeptical of the poor excuses for horror movies that have been coming out over the past decade or so (every Saw movie, for example), I don't think that you will be disappointed here.

As Halloween approaches, if you're looking for a scare I highly recommend checking it out. I would also recommend taking a date, that is assuming you can get your lady-friend to agree to see it and sit through the entire thing. Additionally, be sure to catch it while it is in theaters as the movie is pretty dependent on subtle (and not-so-subtle) noises, so taking advantage of the superior quality of movie theater sound systems is a near must.

2 comments:

Dusty said...

Wow you are more of a girl than my wife and she was a sorority girl. Ashley went and saw this with one of her friends last weekend and said it was garbage. She said it wasn't scary at all. She said she heard scarrier things growing up in her parent's house on their secluded 50 acres. Yuppies just can't handle these type of movies. The Blair Witch was horrible as well IMO. I am so glad I saw this post b/c it just made my day.

If you are looking for a good scary movie for Halloween, watch Strangers. After Ashley went and saw it, we had to sleep with my .40 S&W and the 12 guage beside the bed.

trip said...

Well, because your wife used to be bothered by actual ghosts as a child, I don't think that she necessarily qualifies as a good judge of scary movies. Besides, you haven't even seen it yourself, so maybe you should check it out before criticizing my review.