Larry Clow

It took two years for “Paranormal Activity” to reach a wide audience, and in that time, the film attracted a fantastic amount of hype online. Filmed in a week in 2006 with a budget of only a few thousand dollars, first-time director Oren Peli’s film bounced around from festival to festival and studio to studio before it finally earned a limited release, and—thanks to sufficient internet buzz—a wide release. It’s been tagged as “the scariest movie ever,” and while that particular hype is a bit exaggerated, it is an extremely unsettling, captivating movie, full of old-school thrills and genuine spookiness.

“Paranormal Activity” borrows the found-footage conceit of “The Blair Witch Project,” with a dab of “The Exorcist” thrown in for good measure, but the use of a handheld camera never feels gimmicky. The movie uses a simple framework to generate a lot of scares, but it does one better by also exploring all the small things that cause ostensibly stable relationships to go terribly awry. Katie and Micah (Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat) have moved in to a two-story house in San Francisco. Bumps in the night, strange sounds, and other weird activity has Katie convinced the house is haunted, and so Micah gets a video camera and attempts to capture the ghost on film. When it becomes clear that the couple is not dealing with an ordinary ghost but instead facing a demon that is fixated on Katie, Micah becomes relentless in his quest to capture something on film and fix the problem. As a result, the situation gets worse, and Micah and Katie’s new home becomes a living hell over the course of three weeks.

Is “Paranormal Activity” the “scariest movie ever,” as some early hype suggested? Well, that’s a matter of opinion—there are plenty for whom a movie like “The Exorcist” is about as terrifying as a pleasant springtime stroll, and there are just as many other viewers who find even the goofiest “horror” flicks to be intolerably frightening. You won’t jump out of your seat at every moment in “Paranormal Activity,” but you will be held captive to an overwhelming sense of dread. It’s an unsettling movie, more concerned with lingering creepiness than sharp, sudden scares. Midway through the film, some night-time footage shows Katie as she gets out of bed and stands motionless, staring at Micah. As the film fast-forwards, we see Katie maintain this disconcerting pose for two hours, before she finally turns and walks out of the room and into the dark, foreboding hallway. Nothing jumps out of the darkness, but the scene has an eerie feeling similar to that of watching a sleepwalker.

Small touches like this are what give “Paranormal Activity” its power. There are no false scares or alternative explanations—no open windows or wayward cats causing the bumps, stomps, and inexplicable footprints that characterize the haunting. Without these usual crutches, Peli forces us to accept that what’s happening on camera to Katie and Micah is not only real, but utterly unknowable and unavoidable. One scene, involving an attic crawlspace, develops in a surprising way that ends up being more frightening than if an actual monster had been lurking about.

Beyond the supernatural horror in “Paranormal Activity,” there’s the more grounded horror of a relationship slowly unraveling. Along with offering some important lessons about dealing with the supernatural (don’t use Ouija boards, don’t provoke the entity, call a demonologist, etc.), “Paranormal Activity” is also a bit of a manual about how not to be an utterly terrible boyfriend. Micah’s initial quest to capture some ghostly footage seems to be harmless at best and juvenile at worst, but as the supernatural incidents escalate, Micah grows to believe that, with just a little more evidence, he can “solve” the problem. Even discounting the possibility of demonic malevolence, Micah’s behavior is grounds for a break-up. But factor in the seemingly real presence of a demon and Micah is, in fact, putting Katie’s life in danger.

This is Featherston and Sloat’s first feature and they look and act naturally enough that the movie retains its realistic conceit. They talk and poke fun with ease, and, later on, bicker, argue, and grow to resent each other with the same sort of casualness. We see Katie knit and make jewelry and watch Micah play guitar, small suggestions that the characters have some sort of life outside the camera.

There is one place that “Paranormal Activity” stumbles, and that’s the ending. After relying on some subtle touches to create genuine creepiness in the rest of the movie, Peli resorts to a cheap, way-too-slick looking scare to cap off the film. It kills the tension and believability, a rotten thing to happen at the last minute. According to reports, the new ending is a result of tinkering by Paramount after some early test screenings. The ending doesn’t ruin the movie, but it does hold it back from being truly great. If you’ve got a demon in your house—or a good ending for a wonderfully creepy flick—don’t mess with it.