paranormal activity

"pararnormal activity" is an e-ticket scary ride.  oren peli, an israeli director, had an idea, $11,000.00, 7 days, and 2 eager fledgling actors willing to both act in and shoot his film.  he got his film premise from unusual activity he experienced first hand shortly after moving into a house in rancho bernardo, ca, a burb of san diego. he researched, wrote and edited it all himself.  he then screened his product at 2 horror film fests with such success and buzz that dreamworks came knocking.  speilberg fully intended to give the story the hollywood treatment and completely remake it, but after viewing it he realized it was the perfect horror film just the way it was. the story goes that while watching a copy of paranormal activity in his home, the door to an unused extra bedroom shut and locked itself and a locksmith had to be called. steven returned his copy of the dvd in a garbage bag presumably to protect himself from the demon posessed disc.

peli capitalizes brilliantly on the very accurate premise that what you can't see is far scarier than any cg monster.  a profitable fact witnessed by the maker of "the blair witch project"- i was actually freaking out over oddly arranged sticks!  my dad's favorite scary movie was the 1951, "thing from another world" in which a polar station is terrorized by something they never see. he was very disappointed in the 1982 remake, "the thing", that actually shows the monster. In 1942, Val Lewton made the crazy sucessful, "cat people", in which all the scary monsters are seen only in shadow. some of peli's other influences were "the entity", also one of my favorites, in which barbara hershey is harrassed by an invisible being with the single purpose of terrifying her and "the others" in which nicole kidman and her children are spooked by spooks or is it the other way around?  he prefers the film in which the story starts simply and the suspense builds. and that almost never happens anymore. horror films have turned into gorefests that aren't scary, just disturbing when you think how many people pay to see bloodier ways to torture and kill other people, ie: "saw 1-12". that's the scary part about these films, that people out there actually think that they are entertaining.

if you want a good scare, paranormal activity is the film for you. when i saw it, there were some very talkative teenagers in the theater, but shortly into the movie, it was dead quiet.  there are a few spots that were titling the cheesy meter and i knew that the backstory wasn't true. yet, it scared me so much afterward i was afraid to go into my car alone, i stopped by a friend's house because i didn't want to go to my house alone, and i still sleep with the lights on.  plus i'm writing this revew from the library because i don't want to think about this film at home or i won't sleep at all.

this is a dark ride.