Paranormal Activity (2007) Review

As I’ve mentioned, I enjoy a found footage film but for some unknown reason I’ve never seen possibly the most famous one of the last decade or so. A few of my mates had said it wasn’t that good and I’d just not taken an interest in seeing it until recently. I guess this means I’ll have to watch all the sequels this has spawned as well at some point!

Director: Oren Peli

Writer: Oren Peli

Stars: Katie Featherston, Micah Sloat, Mark Fredrichs

Budget: $15,000 estimated

Run Time: 86 minutes

Trivia – During the first test screenings, people started leaving the theater. Originally the crew thought this was because the film wasn’t going over very well with its audience, only to discover that people left the auditorium because they couldn’t handle the intensity of the piece.

(Seriously what kind of people are these lot?)

Trivia – Paramount acquired the US rights for $350,000. The film went on to make $193 million worldwide, making this the second most profitable film ever made based on a return of investment.(First most profitable is The Blair Witch Project which cost $22,000 and made $240.5 Million)

Yes my boyfriend just wasn’t annoying enough until he started taping everything

So yet another found footage film just bear with me as I know a few of you dislike the genre! Paranormal Activity is a simple haunted house/person film. The story is really basic a young couple in their home start to experience some strange noises in the night around the house.

Luckily for us Micah the bloke, decides that he’ll film everything to try and work out what the hell is going on. As with all haunted house or possessed demonic house films go it starts with small events and they build and build as the film goes along, eventually leading to the conclusion of the story.

Most of this film takes place in the bedroom which is filmed during the night, not sure what’s wrong with the ghost but it seems to like messing with them when they go to sleep.

I think the boyfriend really wants to make a different kind of film

Once things get bad Katie calls in a ghost hunter bloke who arrives and is immediately put off by the aura of the house, he suspects it’s demonic and he can’t handle that, so we say goodbye to one of the only three people who appear in the film.

After the activities have picked up to a virtually unbearable level we start to find out some details about Katie’s past whilst her boyfriend continues to be a jerk. He goes behind her back and tries using a board to contact the ghost and generally thinks he can solve things, right up until the finale of the film.

The Good

As usual the pacing of these kind of films is key and Paranormal Activity really nails it, the build up and up in terms of haunting events is really good. Add that to a pretty good ending and you’ve got an enjoyable watch, I must admit I haven’t seen any of the alternate endings if they exist? I’m sure I saw someone talking about the different endings.

I loved the ending of this film really makes me curious about the alternate ending, I’ll go check to see if I’ve imagined them existing!

I like the main actors in this film, they’re believable in their roles without being spectacular.

The Bad

Hard to pick anything that really stands out as being terrible in this film. Sure you could just view it as a film filled with bed covers flying about and a few bangs here and there. I guess it depends what you find creepy, I always think a good found footage film will make you think about how you’d react in a similar situation. Now if my covers kept flying off in the middle of the night and I got pulled out of bed I’d probably spoil myself, especially if I’d recorded it in the night.

Overall this film is very enjoyable, along with The Entity this is probably my favourite found footage films out of the ones I’ve watched recently. Are the sequels worth watching? I’ve heard good and bad things, feel free to let me know on the comments here or on Twitter @ABsHorrorShow

Overall Rating