Brought to you by OBS staff member Rose

Name: Paranormal Activity
Rated: R
Running Time: 86 minutes

Director: Oren Peli

Synopsis
A couple, Katie and Mika, who live together in San Diego have been experiencing strange disturbances in their home. Katie hears noises at night and thinks something is in the house, so her boyfriend Mika decides to document their lives and set up a camera in their bedroom to capture what has been going on.

Review
Paranormal Activity was produced with an $11,000 budget and the movie grossed $1.2 million in its early limited release and was consistently sold out. The buzz surrounding the movie was so overwhelming, an online campaign was initiated to have the public vote for the movie to be released nationwide and succeeded.

Depending on your level of scare-ability you will either be on the side of the fence that finds this film very creepy and scary or on the opposite end, thinking it ten minutes goose bump worthy and seventy five minutes test of patience. Personally, fifteen minutes before the movie ended I figured out what would happen. It had to end the way it did for nothing else would have been more shocking.

When watching this movie you feel as if you found someone’s camcorder, popped it in for a watch and felt compelled to continue watching simply because you want to know what the heck happens next. It’s like Big Brother After Dark with ghosts sans sex and stupidity.

It would have been more compelling as a short film, cutting out all the useless scenes of them brushing their teeth or studying for class. I know it’s all about the build up but the wide gaps in ‘scares’ did nothing to keep my own suspense meter on high.

I won’t go into more detail about it for I wouldn’t want to ruin it for others, but speaking from the side of the fence that doesn’t scare easily, I found the movie to be a bit of a snoozer. Maybe I should have viewed it in a movie theater surrounded by others, for like laughter, fright is infectious in large groups. But it was just two of us and being the horror movie addict that I am, I am sorry to say I disagree with the all hoopla that it is the scariest movie of the decade.

Rating: 6.5/10 stars