PARANORMAL ACTIVITY
For Katie
(Katie Featherston), a San Diego college student, things have been going bump
in the night since she was 8-years-old and a ghost attached itself to her. The
unseen being that has been benignly haunting her for years thrills Katie’s
loving but skeptical boyfriend, Micah (Micah Sloat), who sets up a video camera
to capture any supernatural goings-on. For his debut feature, reportedly shot
in seven days at a cost of 15 grand, writer-director Oren Peli works wonders
with stationary camera footage of the sleeping couple: the bedroom door moves,
slightly, lights in the hallway go on and off, a shadow passes the bed. As the
nights go by, the presence, seemingly annoyed at being recorded, begins upping
the ante, and soon it appears that poor Katie is on the verge of channeling her
inner Linda Blair. Grounded by strong performances by newcomers Featherston and
Sloat, who pretty much have the movie to themselves, Paranormal Activity, which demands to be seen in a crowded theatre,
is refreshingly blood-free; the fact that its old-school scares caused
seemingly jaded twenty-somethings at a recent midnight screening to squirm in
their seats suggests that there’s hope for the world after all. (Chuck Wilson)
