Really? That's it? That's PARANORMAL ACTIVITY? I'm not a hard guy to scare. I've gotten the creeps watching A HAUNTING on A&E in the middle of the day. I jump when the phone rings, my doorbell jolts me like electroshock therapy, I have bad dreams about kittens and I can't stomach the nightly news. THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT actually did freak me out. PARANORMAL ACTIVITY? Nothing …nada. I'm not trying to be contrary. I didn't go in the theater with a chip on my shoulder; I tried very hard to get into this movie. I left my expectations at the door and I imagined it was all happening to me (something that usually works) and still I felt zero fear. What the heck is supposed to be scary in this movie? A blanket falling off the bed? C'mon…really?
Maybe it's me. Maybe because sleepwalking, hours of lost time, unexplained bite marks and crouching in fear from unseen malevolent forces are such huge parts of my day to day existence that they just don't freak me out as much as they should on film. I wanted to be scared, I did. I hate people who say they don't get scared! Still, I don't get this movie! How is it that this movie struck a nerve with some people? To me it's just a story about some garden-variety schlub who's scared of the baggage (i.e. emotional needs) that comes with the gal he just shacked up with. Yea, a Ouji board catches on fire, but the scariest thing in this movie to me was the book on demons that he leafs through. I get subtle horror people, I do; I swear. I don't need slimy monsters and decapitations. Ugh, maybe I just hated the way the couple depicted decorated thier home. Was she having a crafty beading party at one point? I hate this couple. I think they cut in front of me at the concession stand before the movie and asked for unsalted popcorn.
Oh well, to each his own. I don't feel ripped off or anything. I don't feel tricked by the brilliantly creative advertising campaign. I just feel like I got a lap dance from someone that everybody but me is turned on by (wouldn't be the first time). If you find this movie scary, all I can say is I am sooooo jealous of you. I want to be you right now. I want to sleep with the lights on tonight. I want to double bolt my door and watch SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH until I'm relaxed and stable again. Maybe I should put on [REC] or WOLF CREEK to get to that place. I know, I'll watch THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT! If only I could get this damn SINEAD O'CONNOR TUNE out of my head…
Yikes. I'm still curious about it, I have to admit. I've only recently been hearing about it. I guess it was time for a new BWP. People like the grassroots stuff, I guess!
hahaha….ahaha… I just cracked up throughout that entire post. I have yet to see this but probably won't in the theater because scary movies in theater are unfair because the sound is turned up and amplified therefore making it automatically more scary.Â
And also I'm a wuss. But what I've gathered from this is that people say that what really scared them was all the "noises" so does that mean the noises were surprising and jolting or they were genuinely scary noises we've never heard before?Â
I'm a big fan of horror movies that don't use sounds and crescendos to accent the horror- or rather to initiate the horror… but unfortunately we see less and less of that everyday.
Â
Aww, sorry you didn't find it scary =(
I guess it was just scary to me because I actually lived in a house that was haunted. it brought back those memories and played with the thought that it could have ended like this.
But yeah, to each his own. Oh and the trailer is CRAP! I can't believe they showed the ending like that! Whoever did that needs to be shot.
Anyway, hopefully you'll find a movie that scares you and isn't quite so overhyped.
Yeah, just put in [Rec] and you should get your fear on. The last 10 minutes of that flick are a massive freakout – I was flabbergasted. It felt like they grafted the ending of the scariest movie ever made onto an otherwise respectably scary movie. Brrrr.
Unk,
Those endings sound very interesting and I hope they release them with the DVD. I thought the ending we have in theaters now was a jump scare and while it was a little creepy, the others sound better.
I wouldn't call this the scariest movie ever made, Bloody Disgusting is a pretty good website, but come on… not one movie can really claim that.
Packed theaters can be good AND bad. I went to a rather cramped viewing and when the girls stood over her boyfriend and stared at him someone screamed "RAPE!" Sure it was funny, but it kind of killed to moment.
But yeah…. bring on the alternate endings!
My initial reaction upon seeing the trailer was, "This movie looks cheap." I figured it probably relied on non-stop cheap scares to keep the audience constantly on edge. And the whole ad campaign seems really desperate to me – very much akin to fans circulating a petition to keep their favorite TV show on the air.
Frankly, I don't know if I want to live in a world where "Paranormal Activity" gets a major theatrical distribution deal and "Trick 'r Treat" doesn't….
This is the film that Spielberg was said to be so unnerved by that he had the DVD removed from his house? Really, Steven? That man's been seriously cottoned up by mainstream success. He should give away all his money. I'll send him my account number and sort code…
Sorry to hear you weren't feeling the movie, Unk – I always enjoy and respect your views on horror cinema. As far as those here who are hopping atop the pigpile without having even seen the damn thing… can't say I respect your opinions much.
Hype is what will create a backlash against this movie, just as it happened with The Blair Witch Project. About 90 percent of said hype is ridiculous, too. Brad Miska over at Bloody-Disgusting even gave the flick a resounding "meh" when he first saw a DVD screener, and went from that to "ZOMG SCARIEST MOVIE OF ALL TIME" – completely absurd. It's not the scariest movie ever. Even just watching the trailer will exponentially improve the odds of not getting into this movie.
As for my take on it, I say it's a good way to spend a couple of hours. I love the faux-documentary, from BWP to MTV'S Fear to The Legend of Boggy Creek to The Last Broadcast. (And no, I don't care who supposedly ripped off what.) I wasn't ratcheted up to unbearable levels of tension while watching it. Watching the trailer inured me to a couple of the better scary moments, to boot. However, the last 20 minutes or so I found to be pretty tense, and the ending? Masonry was excreted. I loved it. I read about the alternate endings, and hope to see them on DVD in the future, but tacky? I respectfully disagree. I dug it. My hands were shaking. Even cooler than that was the lingering creepy vibe I took home with me, to my condo in San Diego with a practically identical kitchen – the vibe that felt like I had screwed up in some way by seeing the movie , had succeeded in opening some door from the supernatural to my life. Ridiculous? Totally. But I still felt it, and couldn't get to sleep for a couple hours after I got home at 2 AM. Now, that feeling went away a couple of days later, and it seems especially silly now, but I love you guys and so I wanted to tell you about it. The last movie to make me feel that way was The Blair Witch Project, and in that case the spooky feeling lasted a week or two, but it was nice to have that feeling again.
Just my two cents. And the last 10 minutes of [REC] is AWESOME.
Just realized that I:
A. Have diarrhea of the laptop
B. Am being overly defensive. Everyone's opinion is valuable.
Sorry on both counts!
@Blue Seven – Props for mentioning MTV's FEAR. That was such a great show.
Blue Seven
Yeah Unk, Blair Witch also scared the crap out of the campers in the crowd. About a week after seeing BW I found myself walking through the woods at about 5:45 in the morning, heading to my favorite fishing spot which was way the hell in the middle of the woods. I was doing fine and then I started hearing all those noises that you hear in the woods and next thing I know I'm running like a little girl – well, Usain Bolt's little girl anyway.
I thought it was a decent little flick. Probably wouldn't give it the same grace as I do if it weren't this "little movie that could", but it didn't bore me to tears or anything.
Unkle, my friend, thanks for the response. Fango has an article about Home Movie (which I skipped due to wanting no spoilage), looks like it's on DVD early December. Sounds like my cup of tea.
I'd been deliberately avoiding reviews of this film till I had a chance to see it myself, and as a fan of ghost stories I was SO EAGER to get all goosebumpy.
Sadly for BOTH of us, Unk, I agree with your review entirely. Â I've been known to get spooked out by episodes of "Ghost Hunters," for heaven's sake, but "Paranormal Activity" left me unmoved. Â Or–worse yet–aggravated by the characters! Â I mean–I've had Actual Things happen to me that were creepier than the events portrayed in the movie. Â No fair!
Also:
"I just feel like I got a lap dance from someone that everybody but me is turned on by"
That may very well be the greatest summary review of this film EVER.
Just saw this tonight, and was I disapointed. Bad writing, bad acting. Actually, the scares were pretty decent, but since they account for probably 15 minutes of the total running time, there's a lot of student film acting going on. About an hour into the movie, I turned to my fellow movie-goer and said "So, it's about a bitchy woman and a total douchbag?"
Pretty much sums the whole thing up.
Yeah, the ouija board thing was pretty ridiculous. And they couldn't even get a regular one, no, they had to get a satan style pentagram ouija. And, even if they knew leaving the house wouldn't matter, couldn't they have at least tried? You know, for shits and grins?
Then after arguing (forever) about whether or not to call the demonologist (forever), they finally get original paranormal guy back… only to have him announce that he can't stay because of the evil vibes and has to leave immediately. Then he does! In a scene lasting perhaps a minute, it's the bad community theater performance of a lifetime! I laughed so hard I cried.
Oh, thank you– this completely sums up my experience. I'm not one of those "it's popular/hyped, therefore it must suck" people, and I really wanted to love this movie. Hell, before I had ever even heard of it, I'd been going around saying somebody should do a Ghost Hunters-style mockumentary/found-footage thing where there actually was something spooky going on.
I was so ready to love this and be terrified, and it just left me almost completely cold. When the final night's footage began I kept insisting to my companions that this couldn't possibly be the end, because nothing had happened yet. And the ending itself was startling and a bit unsettling but at the same time felt very cheap… it was like I'd paid to see a 90-minute screamer video. I looked up the original ending on Youtube and it's actually much subtler and creepier (MILD SPOILER: showing less is almost always a better idea, and her rocking back and forth for an entire day is quite shivery), and if they'd just taken that ending and punched it up a little bit with a final scare, it would've been a MUCH better movie.
Also, I second the recommendation for Home Movie— it's quite good and much scarier than PA.
so when I watched this (a while ago[last year haha]) I was literally falling asleep. our options had been paranormal activity or trick r treat….oh how i regret our decision