Animal Activity

Animal Activity, originally uploaded by Fanboy30.

On Wednesday night we ventured through the cold to go see Paranormal Activity at our local Empire Theatre. Since the hype online many weeks ago we have been eagerly awaiting this movie to come to Halifax, I even went to their website and joined in the polls to request it come to a city near you (clever marketing).

For those of you who are unaware of the plot its basically about a couples struggle to try and document what seems to be a haunting in their own home. All the footage is by a hand held camera and has some premise that it is a true story similar to how Blair Witch was introduced to us.

The movie itself was very minimal, we would get dialogue from the suffering couple trying to find out what is going on in their house and at night the camera is placed on a tripod in their bedroom to watch what happens while they are asleep. Most of the sequences at night only amount to bumps and noises, doors moving and lights turning on but these create a wonderfully creepy build of tension.

I won't go into details but Paranormal Activity was fun but it fails on one major level and that having a cliche horror Hollywood ending. After the movie I read that the director had shot a number of different endings but the one that was released was heavily influenced by Steven Spielberg no less. The movie had managed to tell a story without being too obvious, the audience was left to decide what was going on and to discuss what they saw or didn't due to the poor quality of the camera.

The ending basically ruined the whole film for us because after such an increase in tension it felt like it was rushed to get to a simple conclusion.

Paranormal Activity works because when you think about it sitting at home you start to become aware of all the small noises a building can make. the cinema setting was crowded and noisy, chatty scared girls, cell phones that weren't switched off and rustling popcorn bags ruined this movie for us because the movie requires silence so you hear every subtlety.

If I was to recommend it to people I would say wait for DVD, curl up on the sofa and turn the lights off and scare yourself silly because I think it only works if you are experiencing it in your own home. This is a place that is supposed to be safe, your own private fortress, and what better thing to penetrate that than something otherworldly?