Paranormal Activity

[LoBo]

i'm actually getting goose bumps thinking about it...great movie. very refreshing like district 9. creepy as hell. after I watched it I didn't think I was going to have any trouble getting to sleep that night... was in bed almost asleep when I heard something in the house...I dismissed it until I heard it again...my mind was racing and then....one of my cats jumped up onto the bed and landed on my legs....I shot out of bed...cursing the cat the rest of the night. good movie

 

[Thatdamncat]

This is an interesting movie for film study. The fear comes from its low budget style and the "found tapes" style it was presented in. A big budget presentation of this script would have undoubtedly inserted "scary" CGI ghosts & ect. In a refreshing way, the fear in this movie comes from the lack of such signifiers of hollywood horror which we are so accustomed to. The actors are a believable and realist couple that, along with style of the movie, make for a truly haunting movie. While this movie may not be in realm of 'The Shining" or 'The Exorcist', it is successful in the same way these greats were; by rejecting the predominate tropes of genre film making and introducing a new way to view horror. This movie succeeds in being terrifying in every way that hollywood horror doesn't simply because it isn't, in any way, a hollywood horror film.

 

[desrtrat]

Hmmm...this movie sounds intriguing but I'm on the fence about it. I'm a horror movie nut and watch pretty much every horror movie that comes out. I'm twisted I guess because I find most horror flicks hilarious. It's been AGES since I could say that I thought a horror flick was actually good, much less scary. The trailer for this one doesn't impress. It reminds me of the old 80's movie "The Entity"..that was based (loosely I'm sure) on a true story..not a bad flick if you haven't seen it haha

I remember getting all excited when Blair Witch came out. People said the same things about that movie that I'm hearing about Paranormal Activity. Everyone said how scary it was blah blah blah. I was VERY disappointed in that movie. I thought it was a unique concept (at the time) with the whole lost footage thing, but all I kept thinking to myself during a lot of the movie was "wow, this is what me and my buddies used to do to scare each other on camp outs when I was 10". NOT SCARY. Not even close. I remember they had a "mocumentary" that they were showing on one of the cable networks just before it came out that gave the background story of the Blair Witch etc.. (that's what got me excited to see the movie) and I thought THAT was scarier than the movie itself.

I don't know..maybe I'm to critical hahaha

 

[KermieD]

I'd be interested in hearing what other movies did what this one does better. Please try to stay away from the pretentious Ju-On and the other Japanese yawners as those don't even touch this movie.

28 Days Later was better when they called it Omega Man about 30 years earlier.

 

[535cheetah]

i watched it on my friends site ... ch131 was decent... not awesome but was better then blair witch! i think the more you believed that it was "real" footage the scary it would be to people.

they needed more things to happen in it, also maybe just a peek of what actually happens the guy.

good acting though like someone else said, the acting was pretty good giving that "real feel"

even though i didnt find the movie scary .. after watching a film my mind always wanders.... what if this or that happened ect..... same thing happened to me as others posted, when in bed i heard a few noises and of course the movie popped in my head, so i had to get up and check it out to see what the noise(s) were lol

 

[ShantaSena]

**********SPOILER ALERT*****************













This movie was a let down for me. Although it did scare me, you *always* knew when the scary parts were coming and they basically showed the scariest part in the trailor.

Probably the most entertaining part of the experience for me was when a couple was walking out from the movie. The guy grabbed/scared his girlfriend, she freaked and threw her soda on him out of terror!!

 

[nj1001]

Yeah, I watched it cuz I got hyped reviews from people I know. I am a horror-head too. I was disappointed with it. I agree that IF I was told or for whatever reason believed it were actually real I'd say it was really good, however, its not & it sort of sucked IMO. Its grossed a ton of $$$ too & I find that even more disappointing but its all because of the massive hype that's been going on over it. Don't get me wrong I love how much of the scare was implied as opposed to over-doing it with gruesome visuals as I find it causes the viewer to use their imagine & can be more terrifying, however, I still didn't find it all that... good try, but
Side note because many refer to their top 5 or whatever, I'll list a couple of scary flix I dig that came out this decade that make Paranormal Craptivity worthless: (in no particular order)
House of 1000 Corpses- definitely gruesome however, it F'd me up, illustrating a good effect & that it was in fact freaky!
High Tension- I encourage you to watch the first 20 mins of this & tell me what you think
Them (or in French Ils)- (don't worry not much subtitle reading at all, LOL) edge of your seat the entire time & makes 'The Strangers' look leagues worse than piss poor by comparison. Anyone that digs horror or suspense HAS to see it!!!
Let the Right One In- more of a child's love story in a way, but its so friggin good they began making an American version before it was even released to DVD because it IS a really well done film & Americans tend to be incapable of watching a subtitled movie & wait for it to come out in American (english)- LOL, JK-ish.
These movies I give

 

[Moon]

it was pretty good. creepy but not all that scary. the freakiest part was when the girl just stood there by the bed. creeps me out

 

[316lvm]

I'm glad to read that others found this movie just so/so. IMO - I thought the movie was stupid and insulting. It promotes the idea of the paranormal in the worst way - sensationalism. That all things paranormal are scary and "evil" and bad things happen. It takes storylines from the Poltergeist, Exorcist, and any other major horror movies and rolls them all into one. The movie portrayed the husband as an a** and abusive one at that. The wife was weak and timid.

As an amature ghost hunter and a "sensitive" I can tell you that:

1) Less than 1% of paranormal activity actually involves cases of evil or entities causing harm

2) Poltergeists aren't interested in your kitchen and your utensils or the kitchen table, they aren't interested in your bedroom or the activities that take place therein. Poltergeist literally means "noisy ghost". You will hear poltergeists more than "see" evidence.

3) If you are going to be rude, insulting, and challenging to a "ghost" then expect it to be rude, insulting and challenging back - provided that it is an "aware ghost" or one that is interactive.

4) They aren't "ghosts" but spirits.

5) Spirits can have good attitudes or bad attitudes just like people.

6) Most times, spirits are aware of you because you are aware of them.

What I do find extremely scary, are actual cases of hauntings that have had a profound effect on the people who have investigated them. Some of these cases were turned into movies: The Exorcist, Amytiville, Bell Witch, Exorcism of Emily Rose. (BTW - The Exorcist book was scary for me. Couldn't sleep with the lights off for over a month!8-o ).

As an aside - many people believe that the Amytiville case was fake. Much of what has been reported has been sensationalized. What I do know about this case has been shared with me by my younger brother who met the Lutz kids about a year after they moved out of the house. The kids shared their stories and photos with my brother, who later told me about them. Shortly after the encounter, we began experiencing odd happenings at our home for about 2 weeks.

I'm not afraid of dying, of gangs, of robbers in my home, the homeless, the drug addicts, UFO's, spirits, Loch Ness or crazy people.
What truly scares me is the government. It can do whatever it wants, to whomever it wants, whenever it wants with disregard for it's citizens.

Sometimes the truth is far scarier than fiction.

End of rant .

 

[kyivish]

Wow thats a lot of assumptions there. I believe that there are things that go bump in the night, but I'd never claim to know whether or not they are dead people or demons or evil or good or even conscious or anything else. As an atheist I found this movie scary, not because I believe in demons (obviously not) but because it taps into our evolution of survival. When faced with an unknown people in general assume the worst case scenario. While watching the movie I was creeped out but not scared. However for the first week after When I'd go down stairs for a midnight snack I'd be very jumpy and I'd turn all the lights on.
Great addition to the world of film, regardless if you were scared or not its hard to deny the creativity and originality of this film.

 

[kyivish]

I'm not afraid of dying, of gangs, of robbers in my home, the homeless, the drug addicts, UFO's, spirits, Loch Ness or crazy people.
What truly scares me is the government. It can do whatever it wants, to whomever it wants, whenever it wants with disregard for it's citizens.

Sometimes the truth is far scarier than fiction.

End of rant .

Thats funny cause I'm scared of anti government types!

 

[316lvm]

Wow thats a lot of assumptions there. I believe that there are things that go bump in the night, but I'd never claim to know whether or not they are dead people or demons or evil or good or even conscious or anything else. As an atheist I found this movie scary, not because I believe in demons (obviously not) but because it taps into our evolution of survival. When faced with an unknown people in general assume the worst case scenario. While watching the movie I was creeped out but not scared. However for the first week after When I'd go down stairs for a midnight snack I'd be very jumpy and I'd turn all the lights on.
Great addition to the world of film, regardless if you were scared or not its hard to deny the creativity and originality of this film.

I'm not making any assumptions. Nor am I talking about religion either. And if you're an atheist, then why would you even believe that there are things that go bump in the night? It should not matter.

As far as the movie goes, it is not original nor particularly creative. It borrows elements from other movies. For example, the posession of the husband, the wife having had this all her life, the wife disappearing, the husband being an a** and so on. It's a basic "evil" vs "good".

As far as "claiming" anything, I claim what I know and experienced.

 

[316lvm]

Thats funny cause I'm scared of anti government types!

That's funny, I never mentioned that I was anti-government. Who's assuming now?

 

[cassavetes]

I liked PA for the reasons I liked Blair Witch; the home video feel, able to be creative and entertaining without obscene amounts of CGI, filmed on a miniscule budget and the use of unknown actors which lead to the films believability.

I was really looking forward to being genuinely freaked out, but I think all the hype surrounding PA gave me expectations it couldn't possibly have lived up to.