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Nation of Origin: USA

Ratings: **yawn**

Notes: Put simply, this film is an insult to my intelligence. It is a goddamn travesty how people are buying into the hype of this film. As I type this, this movie is the 2nd biggest earning film in theaters. I didn’t see it in the theaters and as I sat in a living room with grown people who were somehow hypnotized into fright when a door swung back and forth and some thumping noises came out of the TV speaker, I was convinced that they would not have reacted that way if they didn’t imbibe all of the bullshit advertising that is selling this flick as one the scariest films of the decade.

It’s cool when a movie costs $85k and impresses you with lean production values (a la Evil Dead), but when a movie costs 15 grand and LOOKS like it costs 200 dollars, there’s something wrong. Americans are being duped into thinking this film is the scariest thing since Swine Flu and, I don’t get it at all. I don’t know who these fools are, but there nothing– repeat, NOTHING– that is going to convince me that A) a door or some sheets moving by themselves while being filmed in infrared equates to being the scariest film of the decade and B) any film in which I have to watch people get ready for bed and brush their teeth more than three times whilst getting into awkward relationship quarrels is worth my $6 for a ticket. There is no art in this film, its like being invited over to someone’s house to watch them fight about what they want to have for dinner and there just happens to be a ghost there too. This is exploitation of the lamest kind: a 2 hour episode of Ghost Hunters with the usual team of clunky High School drop-outs replaced with Ross and Rachel from Friends. I am not exaggerating.

Early this month, I have said that I’m not so into “haunted house” movies because it seems like there is always that option of moving the fuck away from said haunted location and getting on with your otherwise unhaunted life. Early on, however, the film quells that notion by having a reputable expert (a psychic) tell Katie that the demon which has taunted her since her childhood will likely follow her if she were to leave the house. This psychic really doesn’t do anything for Katie and Micah but tell them how fucked they are and then leave. Ok, so, Katie can’t leave, but Micah could and it seems like great deal of the plot of the film is based around the “negative energies” created by the couple’s bickering. The psychic even says as much and for some reason Katie never brings this up again. The demon might follow her but at least she’d be away from the bad vibes created by her douchebag beau. I don’t understand why Katie and Micah seemed so content to move in together in the first place when, in addition to being possessed by demons, Katie is clearly high-maintenance and batshit crazy and Micah is your typical Dane Cook worshiping, self-absorbed douchebag.

Not to kick a couple of dead horses that will rise from the grave and haunt Billy Crystal and Bruno Kirby in the upcoming City Slickers 3 (just kidding), but the last month on horror film watching has proven to me that good horror hinges on a connection to the characters and these two characters are plain annoying and obnoxious.. which really is fine. Every single victim in Friday The 13th is obnoxious and terrible and we love that because we take joy in seeing Jason dispatch them. That whiny wheelchair kid in Texas Chainsaw Massacre is so annoying that you don’t even feel bad for his disability. Still, this dynamic of being made to hate a lead character so you may enjoy their imminent death is kind of a cheap and crass way of bypassing the need for quality acting and character development and cutting right to the exploitation. it’s cheap and shabby, but it works. The problem with Paranormal Activity is that we never actually see the antagonist. Truthfully, we never get to see anything at all. We see a door move, a sheet blow up, and (at the very best) we see Katie dragged out of bed by an unseen forced. Not “unseen” like that intense part of Nightmare on Elm St. where the girl flies into the air and slams into the ceiling and bleeds everywhere, “unseen” like the way my brother-in-law ties strings to the door to slam them from across the room in order scare our cousins when they are glued to a horror movie in the dark. Without little doubt, he could have made this movie.

The people who made this film have no respect for their audience. Critics are lauding how cheaply made the film was, Sure, horror is one of the few genres that can be very cheap and still be super effective and some its best specimens are extremely low budget films that grossed millions. But this isn’t John Carpenter cheap– fuck this isn’t even Ed Wood cheap– this film is just irredeemably cheap. I want to take back all of the bad things I’ve said about Michael Bay after having seen this, because Bay really thinks explosions and loud sound effects are what people want to see. His movies are a complete cacophony but at least he’s put THAT much thought into a dunderheaded movie in order to exploit a popular toy from the 1980’s. Oren Peli needs to be punished for making this film, because he’s just exploiting simple-minded, superstitious Americans who will buy into any and all hype and believe anything if it is shot in “night-vision green.”

According the imdb.com this film was conceived because he had a box of detergent fall off a shelf– AND THERE WAS NOBODY THERE.