Paranormal Activity (2007)

One of the pioneers of found-footage being to-date amongst its most effective and wildly-original scare packages, Paranormal Activity is the bump-in-the-night trope on steroids – and shows what imagination & atmosphere over budget can bring Horror. 8.7/10.

Soon after moving into a new suburban home, Katie (Katie Featherston) and Micah (Micah Sloat) start noticing what appears to be a supernatural presence in the house. Hoping to capture evidence of it on film, they set up video cameras around the house, but are not prepared for what they find and the terrifying events that follow.

Full Review Coming Soon

Pros: Found footage form and low-budget horror style extremely unique and respectably ambitious, gets right to the horror quickly – appreciated as many horror films needlessly prolong character introductions (although they are done effectively and with surprisingly good character development due to the smart decision to limit it to few main characters), surprisingly good acting from unknowns Micah and Katie especially in the horror scenes (dips a little in the personal down-time scenes but is spot on when it really counts), well set-up and strong unfolding of the story and progressively-elevating scares, personal feel and extreme realism achieved through the found-footage form and style that makes the horror hit home even more, fantastic aura and overwhelming suspense achieved by Peli through slow-churning escalation and pacing and things as simple as lights going on and off and silence making you pay eagle-eye attention to the smallest details which can cause horror, true to its form and idea of being filmed like Micah had shot it himself and there are no shots or indications to lead us to believe that that fact isn’t true – authentic and great attention to detail and crafting by Peli who shot the film in 7 days at his own house, not too long, PHENOMENAL final act & ending as the entity gets more aggressive and wild climax before screen cuts black – truly horrifying & satisfying,

Cons: A lot of time spent on daytime scenes – scares are effective but should’ve been far more often, starts out without explaining why they started videotaping – should’ve explained better, Micah stupid for calling out & antagonizing the entity in the first place