James King is only twelve remember. Shouldn't have been allowed in.

I can't see anything good about the faux-documentarie style of cinema. The Blair Witch Project is on of the dullest, unscary horror films I have ever seen and Cloverfield isn't much better.



I am not going to put myself through such tedium or cost again, though I would wish my worst enemy to see them on a continuous reel for 72 hours.



It could be that alot of Americans are dumb and just thought that the film was all true, like god and weapons of mass distruction.

Mark, I decided to go out and see Paranormal Activity with a friend after hearing your review. The fact that you said you liked it (but you weren't scared by it) put a lot of my worries to rest, but I was still somewhat sceptical, not knowing what to expect. But I greatly enjoyed the film. Big plus points for me go to the natural style of acting from the lead characters, excellent use of the darkness of the hallway to convey horror (several critics have pointed this out in their reviews), and a novel idea in speeding up the camera during the night sequences (please correct me someone if this has been done before).



The only negative I can think of is the redundancy of having a 'friend' character who does nothing to help the plot. Maybe the writer realised the implausibility of a young couple living together with no contact with the outside world, and the friend was there to show that, yes, occasionally others do visit. But I feel ultimately she had nothing to do and was only there to plug up a plothole.



I thought the ending was great, though. I thought it might end up with an exorcism, like so many other possession films do. But this film didn't, and was better for it.

One small addendum: I wouldn't say I was scared by it, but I was certainly disturbed. My friend, however, is more interested in horror films than I am and he was very shaken by the whole film. We spoke about it today and he says he thinks it is because I am a sceptic about the supernatural, and he isn't. I can just tell myself, "It's only a movie", but he thinks that somewhere out there this stuff does happen. Just a thought.

Bravo Doc,



I admit that the final shot was effective in messing up your nerves - well done Mr. Spielberg for that contribution - but the rest was familiar, stale, predictable territory. Its attempts to emulate the likes of Blair Witch, Open Water and first few scenes of Wolf Creek failed miserably for me. Way too staged and glossy, and the characters don't feel anywhere near as credible or natural. That convenient and contrived open door really got on my nerves too.

Went to see this last night and once again I feel like something of an odd one out as not only did I find the film engaging and believable but also utterly terrifying (and that's not a term I use loosely). I am also a die hard horror fan and have been ever since I was a child and first sat down to watch evil dead 2. My film collection is 90 percent horror but I can honestly say that I have not seen a single film that has left me feeling as shaken scared and down right disturbed as paranormal activity. I went to see the film with some friends, all of whom shared my terror, one of whom left practically shell shocked. Perhaps I'm just an easy target but I felt the subtle build up of events, starting very small on to very big, left a genuine sense of dread for each coming night. By the time the film came to a close the tension had been built so high that the entire audience burst into a fit of nervous laughter that echoed the shared though 'thank god I can finally relax'.



As a side note, the film brought to mind the short British film 'Whistle and I'll come to you', A masterpiece of tension building that can currently be seen on iplayer.

I can sort of see where mark and his massive hands are coming from in that if you have been able to follow horror for a good number of years this could seem a bit tame within the genre.



But as a genre fan that has only studied it in the last 10 years I have to say that Paranormal Activity is a genuinely creepy film. It might be facetious but as a viewer that has only seen Exorcist, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Haunting, Rosemary's Baby etc (and they are wonderful films) in the last decade they aren't as visceral as they must have been in their time. I can watch any of those films over and again and love them for their intentions, their style and ingenuity but not be genuinely discomfited by them. PA is a fantastic modern horror that will absolutely freak out non-horror movie-goers, but it also does the job for those of us that are sufficiently anaesthetised by such gash as Saw, Hostel etc.



And, Matt7895, the peripheral friend character was instrumental in the ending that was changed for the general theatre release. I would've liked to have seen that.

How come nobody mentioned "Rec"? For shame! I thought Rec was a great example of the type of faux docu-horror being discussed. And it was scarey! I was almost as scared as I ever get from watching a film.



The film that creeped me out the most, (as an adult), was the US remake of The Ring, which also has an eerie juxtaposition with the real world i.e. the cursed film within the film. This works best, as it did for me, if you rent the video-tape of The Ring without knowing too much about it...



I can't say that I'm particularly interested in watching Paranormal Activity. Unlike The Ammityville Horror in the 70s, it isn't even pretending that it's real. I can't see any difference between P.A. and the Ghostwatch TV show from 1992.



The two films that freaked me out the most ever were Alien and The Body-Snatchers (70s version). I taped them both from late night TV and watched them as a twelve year old. I watched them in a cold sweat, transfixed in morbid fascination and at bedtime they replayed in my mind's-eye as soon as I turned out the light and tried to sleep.



I don't think the reaction you get from films like these, watched as a twelve-year-old with no prior knowledge of what to expect, can ever be repeated once you reach cynical middle-age and you know that it's all just smoke and mirrors.

lanky -



you're exactly right. PA totally reminded me of Ghostwatch and I watched it again on youtube since going to see PA. Ghostwatch really got to me when I was a nipper and PA worked on the same level. Also, I didn't know much about PA before seeing it. No doubt it wouldn't have been so effective if I'd known loads about it beforehand, but then that can be said for practically every film made.

I like the slamming door; only someone with huge hands could've slammed a door that hard.

The Door motif is something worth exploring in horror films in a way it taps into childhood fears of monsters in the cupboard; what's behind the closed door?.

The twilight zone uses a door as a portal, the axe-chopping scene in The Shining, the lights behind the door in close encounters just before the child is abducted. Any more examples?

Also its the latency of the horror that scares you , you may not have been scared of such films as this or Blair Witch in the cinema but memories of the film would terrify you the next time you were alone in the house and had to go down the dark hallway to answer a call of nature at 3am, that is when these films haunt the most.