A couple weeks ago I was dragged to see Paranormal Activity, a low-budget horror movie that was supposedly one of the scariest horror movies of all time… Well that was the hype at the time.
Personally, I hate watching horror movies. Why? It’s because: FIRST, I’m such a chicken shit. SECOND, I can scream like a 7-year-old girl in the middle of the movie. Trust me, you wouldn’t want to have me sitting next to you while watching a horror movie. I honestly couldn’t remember how I was convinced to go see this movie. All I knew was I found myself sitting in the theater and looking up to see the lights as they were being turned down because the movie was about to start.
The movie was shot in documentary style (the camera was carried around by one of the main characters). So there were a lot of movements, camera being jerked around and held sideways, etc. It got to the point where I felt the camera was being jerked around too damn much and really made me feel extremely dizzy. It was like The Blairwitch Project, except that this movie was 10 times scary.
The movie started really slow – the first few minutes it was only showing how the boyfriend was gonna try to catch “the ghost” with his new big-ass camcorder and (maybe) try to whoop his butt. Then it was showing how they went about their business everyday but nothing really happened. Finally after the 4-5th night they stayed in the house, things really started happening. That’s when the movie started scaring the hell out of me. They heard someone stomping up and down the stairs in the middle of the night (but nobody was there), another night their bedroom door started swinging by itself, and then the following night the girlfriend all of sudden woke up in the middle of the night and and walked to the backyard, sat on the swing and started humming (then afterwards she realized she had no idea why she was there), etc.. Seriously, if it hadn’t been because of freakin headache, I would’ve probably scared shitless. There were a few times where I had to shut my eyes for a few seconds – NOT because I was scared to watch – because of the unbearable pain in my head caused by the camera moving around too damn much.
Personally, I think the movie was very well done, considering it was made with only a budget of $16K and somehow found its way to the box office. The screenplay was very good, both the stars (“the boyfriend” and “the girlfriend”) really nailed the characters down and even though it started really slow at first, I think it was intentionally done that way in order to build the suspense. And there was barely any special effects in the movie. Seriously, if I see any 3D ghost in a horror movie, I’d literally walk out of the theater.
IndoDONKEY Alert!
