Paranormal Activity- A Brief Retrospective
I’m not nostalgic for Paranormal Acivity, but I am nostalgic for that era in general. So I was sitting around, it’s on Tubi and I threw it on. I figured it would kind of suck. No, it’s actually pretty good. Absolutely a product of it’s time though. Low budget, found footage, stuff that just doesn’t make sense in the iPhone era. But this movie is absolutely a good production. I was really impressed with it overall and thought I will probably never watch it again, I’m glad I revisited it.
What stood out at first was the quality of the acting. It’s not Juillard level or some shit, but these actors (Katie Featherston as Katie and Micah Slout as…Micah) play their roles to the level of real people. I mean they aren’t particularly interesting people, besides the whole haunting, but they are very real people, with depth and nuance that maybe they don’t even recognize. Micah’s kind of an arrogant dick, Katie’s kind of meek but also more laidback. She’s pretty brave considering the circumstances, as is he. I would not have put up with this shit.
The pacing is also pretty good. You could argue the first 15-20 minutes drag on a little bit, but I liked it for character development and the subtle but evolving tension. The setup is good. They explain the premise and then let you see that it’s for real and then from there it’s just rote escalation, a smartly constructed ACT 1- ACT III structure. This movie is also an appropriate length at an hour and a half. It doesn’t overstay it’s welcome, but it doesn’t feel slight either. The sequels would benefit from this level of precision.
The scares themselves are actually pretty brilliant. There’s some jumpscares, yes, as there should be, most of which rely on excellent sound effects, but there’s also some really creepy moments that might be even scarier. I appreciated the stones of the director to go in on some world building dread. But at the same time, he smartly doesn’t give away the whole goat. You don’t learn what the source of paranomal activity is in any academic sense. There’s a little scene where Micah reads a book about demons but that’s sort of just eye candy and doesn’t come up in a big way (unlike in The Conjuring 2.) Basically it’s just that Katie has some sort of demon or ghost that is wrecking her life at night and doing mischievous shit. It learns from older classic horror who don’t give away too much (Halloween, Friday the 13th, Texas Chainsaw Massacre) and let’s the viewer be afraid.
The film also has this sneaky little subplot about their relationship and how it’s kind of toxic. I mean she’s a doormat that also brings a lot of fires and he loves playing in the fires and poking them with a stick. She’s begging him to stop using the camera because it’s pissing off the demon and he…just ignores her. He wants to take this thing down, seemingly at all costs. It’s very middle class American love, kinda shitty and desperate but sweet when it matters. Even though at times they were a little annoying, I was still rooting for them and hoped they figured it out.
Even though it’s low budget, technically it feels pretty polished. Solid, effective script, creative camerawork, just enough settings and characters to keep it interesting and just enough focus to keep it from going to shit. I really respect this movie. It delivers on everything it promises. Now, I don’t think it’s a masterpiece, but I think it’s brilliantly crafted experience and proof that you can do so much with creativity and hard work. Yeah, this was fun to watch.
