1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die- Paranormal Activity

#1095- Paranormal Activity (2007)
Starring: Katie Featherston, Micah Sloat, Mark Fredrichs
Directed by: Oren Peli


Plot Summary: Katie and Micah move into a new house together in San Diego. Katie believes that an evil spirit is following her, so Micah sets up a camera to record any supernatural forces while they sleep. The two seek a psychic and are advised to contact a specialist and to not taunt the spirit. Micah avoids both pieces of advice by begging Katie to not call the specialist and by using a Ouija board to communicate with the spirit. As each night passes, the paranormal occurrences become more intense, as they discover that the spirit is out to torment Katie. As the days continue, tempers between Katie and Micah grow stronger, as Katie does not think Micah is not taking the situation seriously and she becomes increasingly frustrated at his constant need to follow her around with the camera.


When I saw that Paranormal Activity was on the list, I couldn't believe it. I remember when the film first came out and everyone was talking about it. The film was so low key that you had to go online and demand your movie theater show it. Everyone was saying how scary it was, but I knew exactly what kind of film it was just by looking at the trailer: a film dependent on jump scares that honestly didn't look that effective. Yet it made a lot of money, produced so many sequels and prequels, and can nowadays be labelled as a modern horror classic so I decided to watch it a few years back and I found out I was 100% CORRECT about it. I'm still baffled over how a film like this could be so popular to where they actually felt it deserved to be called a movie someone should watch before they die, but regardless, let's see if we can find anything redeeming about it.

The main (and basically only) characters of Paranormal Activity are Katie and Micah, played by Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat. Majority of the plot focuses on their relationship and how the presence of a supernatural being affects it and it is ABSOLUTELY PAINFUL AND BORING TO WATCH! I had to try and rewatch this film a number of times because their babbling kept putting me to sleep. Katie might come off as annoying and whiny, but it's only because Micah is a complete douchebag who undermines what she says. The point is that it's a bad combination that results in two protagonists that are beyond obnoxious to follow.

The film's bread and butter for producing fright within the audience is through the use of jump scares. Since most modern horror films rely on jump scares, it's nothing original. Not much else to say on that except that they should find more creative ways to scare people than with creaking floorboards and sheets that move.

I will give the film the smallest amount of credit in that it brought relevance back to the found footage subgenre of horror that hasn't been seen since The Blair Witch Project. For my own experience, the found footage hurt my eyes and gave me a headache. I love a film with good cinematography that does not feature the shaky cam, and whenever Micah is walking with the camera it's nothing but shaky cam. And when the camera is stationary while they sleep, you can barely see what's supposed to be scary because of how far back it is, but for some reason so many people liked it to the point where it's now a subgenre again. Since then, a handful of films have tried to copy the formula of Paranormal Activity (including its sequels and prequels) and all I gotta say is that I haven't seen them, but I hope they have more excitement than this overhyped mess.


Rating: 1.5 out of 5 stars

Paranormal Activity is remembered for two things: the jump scares (like most modern horror films) and revitalizing the found footage horror film. Other than that, there is very little substance and the film DRAGS. I can't even fathom how this is the current popular horror franchise and I don't think it is worth your time unless you're an absolute die-hard horror fan, in which case, rent it once.

Paranormal Activity and movie images are copyrighted by Paramount Pictures