Starring Katie Featherston, Micah Sloat
Directed by Oren Peli

★★★

2009 has shown itself to be a promising year for the horror film; after the Asian wave of originality had just about run dry and Hollywood’s best answer was to remake nearly all of those films one by one and scene by scene, the future was looking decidedly bleak. Then earlier this year hopes were significantly raised with the arrival of superb Swedish vampire yarn, Let the Right One. Now Paranormal Activity ensures that the year also closes on a reasuring high.

Young couple Katie and Micah (respective actual names) are enjoying a spell of pre-engagement cohabiting and life is going well. That is, until Katie becomes worried about strange noises at night and a general feeling of unease while she sleeps. Feeling her concern, Micah buys a home video camera in the hope that filming their night’s sleep might shed some light on the situation. But resulting footage reveals some unnerving evidence as things move, mysterious shadows appear and strange voices can be heard.

Spooked by these inexplicable phenomenons, Katie enlists the help of a paranormal medium. After she informs him that this is actually not the first time in her life that such strange incidents have occurred, he fears that there may be a demonic presence at work. He recommends an expert, wishes them luck and urges them not to do anything foolish such as try to make contact. He also advises Micah not to continue filming fearing it may only make matters worse. He is, however, quite reluctant to heed this last warning and as the recording continues things get worse, much worse; doors slam, loud noises echo through the house and Katie undergoes some alarming bouts of sleep walking.

Paranormal Activity is a highly admirable piece of work because it gets maximum effect from its concept in the most regular of settings. In doing so it has also broken an impressive record; in its short theatre life to date, it has already become the most profitable feature film of all time. Quite a feat for a production shot entirely in its director’s own home and in just ten days.

Although the shaky amateur footage of the ‘reality video’ film has been seen a fair number of times by now, the closest in style to this is the one that brought the technique to the mainstream back in 1999, The Blair Witch Project. But while TBWP deserves its credit for being the first to bring the technique to box office breaking levels (this writer believes it was unjustly received in this territory due to effect sapping over hype), Paranormal Activity achieves a far more effective result with the same restraints. It’s a case of pure simple genius when you consider the concept of successfully creating palpable dread and fearful suspense in perhaps the most comfortable environment we have; our own beds. This is also probably the strongest evidence yet that budget busting CGI technology doesn’t do much for the horror genre. It is still the believability factor and leaving plenty to the imagination that get the true scares. “Don’t see it alone” if you don’t wish to, but as long as you have rattling plumbing at 4am or a wardrobe door with self opening tendencies, it won’t be much help.