And here it is:
A completely pointless, toothless, plotless, wholly non-scary, poorly-written, acted and directed genre exercise that has gotten drunk off its very own brand of ‘request me!’ Kool-Aid.
Paranormal Activity Directed by Oren Peli
Please ignore the poster. It is not one of the scariest films of all time. It does not leave an imprint on your psyche. I would have thought audiences would have learned, after Blair Witch Project, that just because you say it, doesn’t make people believe it. (I am still convinced, all these years later, that so many people went to Blair Witch because they couldn’t figure out why they didn’t see what so much of the ‘hype’ told them they should).
Perhaps I’m being too hard on the movie. But I expected better than a b-level exercise in an already-tired “Let me follow you with a camera, wait, you’re upset, wait things are happening, wait, now you’re angry, wait, this is going to work, wait, this is worse than it seems, wait, this is what happened before, wait, we’re all…” but then, I wouldn’t want to spoil the completely expected and really pretty standard ending you’ve seen in a million other movies of this type, in one similar derivation or another.
The movie opens with loving couple Katie and Micah moving into a nice new home that, surprise! is visited by a presence that really doesn’t like the nice, smiling young lady.
And that’s about it, folks. The hauntings get increasingly severe, there are moments and issues the director touches on but that go nowhere, and I mean genuinely creepy instances occur but then are thrown to the movie ether to focus on a really trite demonic specter. If the director had placed his faith in the story he was building and had he not focused so much on this one pretty intense ‘Macguffin’, he really may have had something here. Never has someone getting up and turning and just…standing…been so effectively creepy.
As it is, he has twenty minutes of a smiling, loving couple and something like sixty minutes of running with a camera, a shaking chandelier, a weird Ouija sequence that is almost laugh-out-loud ridiculous, and baby powder footsteps walking across the floor. (I just chuckled a bit thinking today’s kids would even sit through the rest of the movie after the Ouija sequence).
The poster says ‘Don’t see it alone’. Do yourself a favor. Only see it alone. Because whether you bring a date, a relative, or an enemy, it’s going to still be a pretty bad movie.
I mean, really, just because some nice white dude comes in and tells them they can’t leave because it will follow them means they won’t even go visit family members or friends when things really go downhill?Why would the friend come to the place where it’s all occurring? But that’s a minor quibble in the face of so much that doesn’t work.
And the ending? If the malevolent spirit really had a problem with the young woman, why would it do what it does at the end? The ending means it wasn’t malevolent, it was just a ‘gang-staahhh.’ It’s a completely different movie its last ten minutes.
And having the people who come in do what they did and end it the way they did and then not have the malevolent spirit be the antagonist of the moment just makes me…and I’m bored just talking about this much of it again…
This has to be one of your most counterintuitive statements ever – people went to a movie because they didn’t buy the hype. Um … really?
I’ve never understood the Blair Witch backlash. Enjoyed it then, enjoyed it now. Absolutely nothing to do with hype and everything to do with it being an inventive, effective little film.
Two quick caveats before I disagree almost completely with your review. One, the hype is out of control on this one, but that’s the job of a marketing department and it’s one they’ve done extremely well. And two, the ending of the movie is terrible, but it’s only the last few seconds… literally… that suck. The ending proper that leads up to that is very effective.
I think you’re severely under-selling the film’s slow and creepy build of nocturnal happenings. You exaggerate about the “sixty minutes of running with a camera” as most of the film is POV from the camera sitting on a tripod watching them while they sleep. Yes it moves a few times to show conversations or to investigate noises and such, but most of it is captured very effectively from a still position. And it is incredibly goddamn creepy. From the door slowly opening then closing, to the shadow, to the footsteps seen and heard… all while the couple sleeps unaware… you can’t help but feel tense and creeped out. And the scene that starts with the “ghost” pulling her leg out from under the covers before dragging her off the bed? Easily the most terrifying and pulse-racing two minutes I’ve seen onscreen in the last twenty years. And those fast-forwarded scenes of her simply standing by the bed or over her sleeping boyfriend for hours at a time are also eerie as hell.
I also don’t understand what you mean by “If the malevolent spirit really had a problem with the young woman, why would it do what it does at the end?” Unless you define malevolent as ‘jovial or friendly’ I think it’s pretty clear why it would do that. Again, the final seconds are ludicrous, but the minutes leading up to them are brilliantly effective.
Yes it was done on a budget, yes the actors aren’t great (but they’re also far from terrible), and yes it leaves a few unanswered questions… but it’s still entertaining and scary. Blair Witch was a mediocre movie with an absolutely phenomenal and terrifying final few minutes… this movie is pretty scary and creepy throughout and then marred by three seconds of Spielbergian meddling.
Sorry I went on and on… had to make up for my recent absence.
I completely disagree, sir.
Perhaps my phrasing was inappropriate, and running wasn’t the correct word. If I have misrepresented that, then ‘my bad’.
But, hoooo-boy, do I not understand where you’re coming from. To wit:
There are so many things that can be said about this movie simply from that sentence, like: You feel this is a good conceit that works effectively for an entire film?
I agree that the leg coming off the bed and being dragged through the house is one of the scariest moments captured this year…but placed into this movie as a whole?
I said there were many instances that worked, and worked incredibly well. Like the first time she stands and the tape fast-forwards? Incredibly creepy. But the third time with nothing happening, and then we’re supposed to buy that it was working-up to what happens later? Not a very good payoff at all.
Which brings us to the ending, sir, and one of the weakest directing decisions I’ve ever seen.
So you’re trying to tell me he’s set this entire thing up and we’re supposed to empathize with this young girl and then the ghost goes all gangster and punishes the boyfriend? Why, cause he was talkin’ smack through the movie? I didn’t know the ghost was a Blood…or maybe a Crip.
And no words on the atrocious Ouija board scene? There are sequences in this movie that a first-year film class would discuss and nix from their final projects.
And at least ten ideas in this movie start, and then: go absolutely nowhere. What was he trying to do, cram so many cliche horror movie tropes into one movie that he got lost in his own homages and didn’t know how to get out?
“But the third time with nothing happening, and then we’re supposed to buy that it was working-up to what happens later? Not a very good payoff at all.” – The 1st time is freaky for how long she’s there, then she does it over him which portends something bad, and then she does it before going downstairs and screaming… they progress really well towards the ending
“So you’re trying to tell me he’s set this entire thing up and we’re supposed to empathize with this young girl and then the ghost goes all gangster and punishes the boyfriend?” – The boyfriend isn’t the only one who suffers here.
“And at least ten ideas in this movie start, and then: go absolutely nowhere.” – I see a few that start and then aren’t explained, but the whole idea is that they and we don’t know what’s going on here.
“Which brings us to the ending, sir, and one of the weakest directing decisions I’ve ever seen.” – Reportedly the ending was changed from the original (which I’ve heard if you’re curious) at the suggestion of Steven Spielberg.
“And no words on the atrocious Ouija board scene?” – I agree it was pretty cheesy, but at least it was brief.
Oof. At the suggestion of Spielberg? If that is true, then…yikes.
Spielberg is one of my twelve movie gods that I worship in the temple of Xanadu that I have built in my underground lair, so to avoid pissing any of those directors off…
Let me venture a guess and say: Does the original ending have anything to do with her hurting herself? If that’s so…then pretty sad they would change it, because that’s what he sets up when he shows the stupid exorcism video.
******************SPOILER***********
The exorcism chewed her own arm off!
Does he follow through with that idea? Nope.