Paranormal Activity – Movie Review
First off, the jittery camera work and swinging camera motions made me somewhat motion sick. About halfway through the movie I felt queasy and light headed. Just fair warning if you’re susceptible to motion sickness you need to prepare yourself.
I went and saw this movie last night and for a low budget film this kicks ass! To get a sense of what you’re in for it’s a movie length episode of Ghost Hunters or Ghost Adventures. Toss in a little Blair Witch action and you’re good to go.
I won’t go into any of the details of the movie since that would spoil it, but the premise is simple: Micah and Kate are experiencing something odd in their home and Micah goes out and buys a video camera to document what’s going on. He puts the camera on a tripod lets it run through the night. We are watching the footage that has been found after all the events have taken place.
It starts off mostly as a game, Micah wanting to capture something and make his girlfriend feel better about living with him. But something is happening, and the lack of sleep and helplessness starts to take its toll and soon the couple is tired, scared and desperate. They begin to lash out at each other which seems to feed this entity and soon it’s all spiraling out of control.
We’ll leave it there for the details of the movie. Half the experience is seeing it all unfold. I had a great time watching this, despite the motion sickness caused by the jerky camera motions. I’m not thrilled with the ending though, I thought it would have been done better. We won’t go into the details, at least not yet, but I think it went a little too Hollywood and broke with the spirit of the rest of the movie. But that aside this is good stuff and it shows that if you have a worthwhile story you don’t need $100 million in special effects.
If you have any interest in the paranormal, enjoy Ghost Hunters or Ghost Adventures or thought The Blair Witch Project was good then you’ll have a fun time with this one. Lots of bizarre things going on and you’re constantly scanning the screen to see what’s coming.
Definitely worth seeing!
Other Articles of Interest:
- Ghost Hunters Halloween Special 2009 – It’s On!
- Grave Encounters
- The Last Exorcism – Quick Review
- Death of a Ghost Hunter
- Ghost Hunters Academy – Almost making Ghost Lab look good
- Ghost Lab – Episode 2 – Tombstone
- What movies are you watching for Halloween?
- Ghost Hunters Halloween Live 2008
- Ghost Adventures returns tonight with a marathon!
- Paranormal Incident
Ghost Lab – Episode 2 – Tombstone
I tuned in for the second episode and found it to be about as quirky as the first one.
In this one they head off to Tombstone Arizona. Other groups like Ghost Hunters and Ghost Adventures claim Tombstone is a hotbed of paranormal activity. Considering the violent and numerous deaths, they might be on to something. Zak and his group at Ghost Adventures even claim they may have caught some spirits in the “act”. Can the spirits still do that?
The Klinge brothers do a really quick investigation in the Bird Cage Theater. They don’t even seem to make it out of the main entryway. A speaker starts giving feedback and that’s enough for them to say the place is haunted. An “EVP” is recorded in which the brothers hear “Right Quick”. Personally, I hear nothing but static and of course them getting bleeped out. How do you know the speaker doesn’t have any power going to it? It’s not like they pulled the cord all the way out and verified it didn’t connect to anything. It also seemed to get more agitated when their lights got closer to it. Interference? Without going through the rest of the building they head outside to the trailer and start to analyze their trophies.
Then it’s off to the Crystal Palace where they seem to spend all of five minutes and declare the place haunted because of personal experiences.
No evidence is found in the old mineshaft so at least there aren’t any claims of a haunted miner; Scooby and Shaggy will be so relieved.
In Boot Hill they have motion detectors going off and then produce a picture of a shadow figure. This gets them excited and by that, I mean really excited. Good thing they didn’t have any guns or they’d be shooting them in the air. Perhaps they did in fact capture something on camera, perhaps it’s just a trick of light or a glitch with the lens. In either case it didn’t actually get them to spend a whole lot more time out there looking for more evidence.
It doesn’t seem like they spent more than two hours in any one place. And as soon as their equipment starts to record something the team races back to their trailer to analyze it rather than going further in and grabbing more evidence. Why aren’t they doing a full investigation and then tinkering with their toys once the sun comes up?
Just like before the evidence is pretty light but the team declares paranormal activity and hauntings. I’m not sure feedback through a speaker, static on a recorder and a grainy photograph justify that determination.
Other Articles of Interest:
- Ghost Lab – Episode 4 – Chicago/Texas
- Ghost Adventures – Return to Tombstone – S10E09
- Ghost Lab from the Discovery Channel
- Ghost Lab – Episode 3 – Chicago/New Orleans
- Destination Truth – Ghosts of Masada/The Leprechaun S03E10
- Ghost Adventures – Upper Fruitland Curse – S14E08
- Ghost Adventures – Rolling Hills Asylum – s04e02
- Ghost Lab – Catfish Plantation and Hotel Lawrence
- Ghost Adventures Hales Bar Marina & Dam – S04E24
- Independent investigation of the Spalding Inn
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