Ten years ago Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez unleashed The Blair Witch Project on the World. Made for about sixty thousand and filmed using handheld cameras, it purported to be footage of some amateur filmmakers who went into the forest in search of the mythical "Blair Witch" and ended up disappearing. It was a huge box-office success and the forerunner for this style of film. Writer-director Oren Peli has taken their formula for his debut feature, Paranormal Activity, and spun it into an often creepy story of demonic invasion.

Set up to be footage shot by twenty-something electronics-minded Micah (Micah Sloat) after he buys a special camera to try and gather proof of the claims by his girlfriend Katie (Katie Featherston) that there are some odd things happening in their house. In the early going, Micah has a sarcastic, "I don't believe you" attitude towards the whole thing while Katie just wants to see if her imagination is just playing tricks on her. This early character development works really well thanks to the breezy, realistic feeling that Sloat and Featherston bring to their characters. It's not hard to buy them as a couple and they're likeable enough that once the film kicks into gear what happens to them has more impact.

Peli lets things simmer for the first half-hour of the movie making little things occur like a door opening and closing by itself as well as scattered noises throughout the night. He also gets in an oddly haunting early scene where Katie wakes up in the middle of the night, stands by the bed staring at Micah for hours in a trance, and ends up outside without any memory of it at all. He also brings in a psychic (Mark Fredrichs) to try and give the film a bit of factual validity, though I found this particular character to be throwaway at best.

The reason you've come to watch Paranormal Activity reaches its boiling point at about the halfway mark. What was simply sitting at a low heat is soon pretty scalding as our demonic presence starts to ramp up its mission to harm Katie going from merely fiddling with doors and slamming around furniture to actually inflicting itself on its human victims. This gives Peli the chance to stage some memorable moments that involve flour, a scene mildly reminiscent of The Entity, a burnt up picture found in the house's crawlspace, and a finale that, while mostly predictable, works pretty well even if I personally would have ended things approximately five minutes before they do.

Like Blair Witch before it, Paranormal Activity seemingly came out of nowhere to become a smash hit. Starting off in a limited number of theatres and having a grassroots (well, as much as the internet can go grassroots, I suppose) campaign to expand it to more venues, this just goes to prove that sometimes a film lacking any big-name stars or expensive special effects can strike a chord with the mainstream audience. Peli knows how to cater to people's fears of the supernatural and hits all the right beats which explains why, prior to seeing it for myself, many of my associates were excitedly telling each other how scary it is.

Which brings us to the question: is this scary for horror fans? My answer would be "no". There's no denying that its sparse filming techniques, limited sets, and swelling sound effects help to enhance things when you're focusing on the screen waiting to see what area shows us the demon's activity but instead of feeling the nervous giddiness that usually goes along with being frightened, I spent more time marvelling out who Peli squeezed maximum eerie from a reported budget of a mere fifteen-thousand.

As of this writing, I consider Paranormal Activity to be one of the best genre films of the year. It's admittedly not very original in execution but there are enough meaty moments in here to keep you engrossed in the story. It also helps that Sloat and Featherston never feel like they're acting adding some authenticity to the proceedings. But, most importantly, it entertains and made more profit than almost every Hollywood genre effort this year giving the major studios indication that sometimes less may actually be more. It's a waiting game to see if they actually listen. (Chris Hartley, 12/11/09)

Directed By: Oren Peli.
Written By: Oren Peli.

Starring: Katie Featherston, Micah Sloat, Mark Fredrichs, Ashley Palmer.