It came in the night, it came in the night, it came in the ni-i-ight

Grievances and faint praise for Paranormal Activity, from the October 22 issue of SEE Magazine. The best thing about this movie, probably, was that it reminded of the incredibly catchy "It Came in the Night" by A Raincoat. That song can be found on one of the versions of Kenneth Anger's "Rabbit's Moon" or, more accessibly, here. But on with the review:

Paranormal Activity is the sort of movie you talk about making with your friends upon realizing your hallway is kind of creepy. Familiarity is this film’s watchword, from conception to casting to execution.

Micah (Micah Sloat), a day trader and totally average douchebag, shares a San Diego home with his girlfriend Katie (Katie Featherston), who has been haunted, off and on, by unexplained phenomena ever since the age of eight. As the film opens, Micah has purchased a fancy camera to document the activity, which have recently started up again. Much to Katie’s chagrin, Micah begins filming everything, including their bedroom at night.

This is a mockumentary along the lines of The Blair Witch Project or Cloverfield, wherein all the footage has supposedly been filmed by the characters themselves. The entirety of this micro-budget film takes place inside the couples’ house, and it relies on the claustrophobia of the space and the banality of the setting to creep out viewers, though it’s only moderately successful at doing so.

Relying on hyperrealism for scares, Paranormal Activity plays on audiences’ fears of something alien entering the supposedly safe haven of their home and bedroom. But without creating a fully imagined cinematic world, the film must rely primarily on the viewer’s belief in demons, ghosts, and things that go bump in the night. If your belief is nil, you probably won’t find Paranormal Activity very scary. It seems to play solely to the fears of people sitting in a dark theatre rather than anything larger, which is what better horror films tend to do.

The most successfully creepy moments are the ones that aren’t necessarily paranormal. One of the more unsettling things that the couple captures on video during the night is Katie rising in a sleepwalker’s trance and standing at the side of the bed for several hours, facing Micah’s sleeping body. By playing this scene in fast-forward, an eerie, otherworldly time-lapse effect is created. It’s far more effective than the scenes which involve slamming doors and footsteps, for example — those bits are startling, sure, but they don’t do much except make you jump.

First-time filmmaker Oren Peli has a good grasp on how to escalate tension, and the pacing is excellent. Without anything meaningful to ground the scares, though, the film ends up being mostly a collection of tense moments. The conclusion is fairly satisfying (more so than, say, The Blair Witch Project) and gives the story a satisfying sense of completion. Paranormal Activitydoesn’t live up to its hype as one of the scariest films ever made, but if you go in with moderate expectations, it will probably work as an entertainingly frightening night at the movies.