Yeah, I know this ain't a movie review site but I don't belong to any o those, so hare's my 'review' of Paranormal Activity.....
This is the first time in my experience that literally HALF THE AUDIENCE walked out on a movie- they just couldn't take it. It bothered them too much. (I almost walked out too, but more on that later) EXACTLY half the audience walked out (course there were only 4 people in the theater to begin with)
SPOILERS (sort-of)
SO tantalizingly CLOSE to being a masterpiece- they ruin it in the last half-second of the movie. I'm serious. Cut off the last half-second and it's perfect.
(SPOILER- if they had ended with the girl staring into the camera, just staring and staring, I might not have slept for a week. Instead they mar this brilliant movie with what I call a "cheap shot" at the very end)
As it stands, this is one of the most disturbing movies I've ever seen.
THE FETISH ANGLE
The camera LOVES the lead actress. Get the DVD just for the first 20 minutes- this is so close to amateur houswife porn. Her boyfriend/fiance's behind the camera, capturing her in every voyeuristic angle possible; barefoot, walking up stairs, even brushing her teeth is sexy! Think my date was oblivious to it, but it's like a catalog of mild fetishes at the beginning.
But this voyeurism serves a purpose; it emphasizes that this woman is alive and vibrant and happy in life, that the couple are madly in love and adore each other. They have an idyllic life.
By the latter part of the movie, she's not even the same girl anymore. In a brilliant performance, this vivacious woman I'd been lusting after becomes a shade, lifeless and colorless. It's like watching a terrible slow break-down. It's really painful to see.
Suffice to say, this isn't a 'fun' horror movie. It's tragic, this couple's lives are totally destroyed by something malevolent. It's kinda like watching someone with a terminal disease slowly degenerate, or watching a rape.
(deleted paragraph)
AWESOME! They did so much with so little. I'm glad someone finally made a movie without FX and CGI all over the place. Like The Haunting (the original B&W masterpiece and not the CGI remake) it's mostly just people banging on the walls, sounds and shadows; yet they convey a vile malevolence using the simplest of tricks. This is what real horror is about- the unseen, the unknown, powerlessness against the forces of evil. (As I said, the one tiny dab of CGI at the end ruins the effect and I wish they hadn't done that)
Boredom and terror combine as you stare at the black abyss of their open bedroom doorway for half the film, just waiting for something to pop out but hoping it won't...
This movie hits too close to home for me tho, and it upset me a lot.
This is the first time in my experience that literally HALF THE AUDIENCE walked out on a movie- they just couldn't take it. It bothered them too much. (I almost walked out too, but more on that later) EXACTLY half the audience walked out (course there were only 4 people in the theater to begin with)
SPOILERS (sort-of)
SO tantalizingly CLOSE to being a masterpiece- they ruin it in the last half-second of the movie. I'm serious. Cut off the last half-second and it's perfect.
(SPOILER- if they had ended with the girl staring into the camera, just staring and staring, I might not have slept for a week. Instead they mar this brilliant movie with what I call a "cheap shot" at the very end)
As it stands, this is one of the most disturbing movies I've ever seen.
THE FETISH ANGLE
The camera LOVES the lead actress. Get the DVD just for the first 20 minutes- this is so close to amateur houswife porn. Her boyfriend/fiance's behind the camera, capturing her in every voyeuristic angle possible; barefoot, walking up stairs, even brushing her teeth is sexy! Think my date was oblivious to it, but it's like a catalog of mild fetishes at the beginning.
But this voyeurism serves a purpose; it emphasizes that this woman is alive and vibrant and happy in life, that the couple are madly in love and adore each other. They have an idyllic life.
By the latter part of the movie, she's not even the same girl anymore. In a brilliant performance, this vivacious woman I'd been lusting after becomes a shade, lifeless and colorless. It's like watching a terrible slow break-down. It's really painful to see.
Suffice to say, this isn't a 'fun' horror movie. It's tragic, this couple's lives are totally destroyed by something malevolent. It's kinda like watching someone with a terminal disease slowly degenerate, or watching a rape.
(deleted paragraph)
AWESOME! They did so much with so little. I'm glad someone finally made a movie without FX and CGI all over the place. Like The Haunting (the original B&W masterpiece and not the CGI remake) it's mostly just people banging on the walls, sounds and shadows; yet they convey a vile malevolence using the simplest of tricks. This is what real horror is about- the unseen, the unknown, powerlessness against the forces of evil. (As I said, the one tiny dab of CGI at the end ruins the effect and I wish they hadn't done that)
Boredom and terror combine as you stare at the black abyss of their open bedroom doorway for half the film, just waiting for something to pop out but hoping it won't...
This movie hits too close to home for me tho, and it upset me a lot.
