Posted by jayray in The year was 1999. The movie was a little low-budget “documentary” called The Blair Witch Project. The camera was shaky. The stomach was queasy. The dinner was regurgitated. But after a little T bowl time and reflection on the film I remembered how creeped out it made me. I wasn’t quite sure it was a work of fiction because the actors were unknown and it was presented as a documentary. That’s what made it creepy.
Fast forward 10 years and there’s a new creepy low-budget “documentary” in town. Paranormal Activity (made for a mere $11,000) features a couple who suspect their house is being haunted by a ghost with an attitude. The action seems to be taking place mostly in the bedroom (giggle) so the boyfriend decides to set up a video camera to see if they can capture Beetlejuice on film. What they do capture over the course of several nights is evidence that they should trash the video camera and get the fuck out.
This movie is genuinely creepy. If I were a lesser man I’d run away screaming like a little school girl. But I’m not. And I didn’t (that you know of). I think I would have been more affected by the movie had it not been for the high school boy a few rows behind me who seemed to be trying to defuse every tense scene with a bird call. I’m thinking he did it to avoid wetting himself in front of the high school girls he was accompanying. I’d venture to say that he probably slept with the lights on that night and maybe the next week because I heard him ask someone when the movie was over if that stuff really happened for reals. Yes, junior. It really did. Have you met my friend Santa Claus? This movie does have the shaky camera, but not too much of it. That was a real treat for my stomach! Also, it gets you where you are most vulnerable. You’re safe in the comfort of your own bed wrapped up tight in your blanket where no monsters in the closet or under the bed can get you, right?
Nope.
In my humble-ish opinion, Paranormal Activity made Blair Witch it’s bitch. This movie does not play around with a pile of sticks, a snotty nose, and some dude standing in the basement corner of an old abandoned house in the woods. No surrey bob. The horror in this movie hits home. Literally.
