If you've been brave enough to stay with us til just after Midnight, this one oughtta send you straight to the asylum. The only caveat I have for you on Paranormal Activity is that if you've already seen it more than twice, you'll probably fall asleep. This is one of those films that is really, really and I mean really good the first time you see it. Everything seems normal at Katie and Micah's new home, with the possible exception of the ghost that's been haunting Katie since she was a kid. The fear this movie instills comes from the footage of the bedroom while they sleep and the sheer amount of creepy, spooky and downright ghastly things that occur. After Scary Halloween Movie #2, you might want to pour a cup of coffee and grab a bite to eat so you can time the start of this one just right. It's 99 minutes long, so pop it on about 12:45 or so. That way when you finally get to bed (if you can sleep after all this) it will be around 3:08am. You'll understand why that time is significant after watching the film.



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This film was almost never released. During the studio test screenings in Hollywood, hordes of people walked out and the producers thought it was because the film was bad. It turned out they were all so deeply terrified, they just couldn't watch anymore. The same thing happened when I saw it in the theatre. I jumped out of my seat so suddenly at one point that I actually got a cramp in my leg that tortured me during the whole movie.

The director; Oren Peli shot this film entirely without a film crew and in his own home. All the cameras were mounted on tri-pods or were carried by the actor playing Micah. It makes us center in on the characters and the good-old fashioned bumps and screams in the night to inflict the fear damage. Now if you've already seen it, I suggest a film produced by Peli (and the guys who made SAW) to take it's place: Insidous. It's a story that runs in the same vein as The Exorcist, but it's even more deeply disturbing. When you combine kids, demons and a parent's strife in recovering a lost kid, you've always got a winner.

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