Paranormal Activity 2007

          A young, middle class couple move into a suburban 'starter' tract house.  They become increasingly disturbed by a presence that may or may not be somehow demonic?  It is certainly most active in the middle of the night?  Especially, when they sleep or try to sleep?  All it takes is one bedroom door to move 12 inches on its own and you feel like running out of the theater and also screaming while you are running??  And, there are moments when you think you should have definitely used the facilities!!  Could it be that your clothing may need to be professionally incinerated by a bio-hazard disposal team??

     Newcomers Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat give subtly authentic performances as Katie and her rugged boyfriend Micah.  They live together in a pleasant apartment.  As the movie begins, we see what Micah sees, his girlfriend driving up to their apartment in a cool convertible.  This is first and last time we will see the normal world ­outside their home.  Katie is not sure she is liking Micah filming her?  Not with just any old camcorder but he has bought a big professional-quality digital movie camera!!  It is complete with the fixed spotlight which in restricted light creates a harsh light-halo in the middle of the frame.  It is like the halo in Blair Witch from 1999.  This spotlight picked out the dense foliage with disorientating clarity and also showed the glistening mucus and tears on Heather's gibbering face!!!  I thought this film was good but it is definitely scary!!  3* (This movie was OK)

 
86 min, Horror directed and written by Oren Pell with Katie Festherston, Micah Sloat, Mark Fredrichs, Amber Armstrong, Ashley Palmer.

Note:  Imdb 6.3* out of 10* with 22,167 reviews, Rotten Tomatoes 83% with 204 critic reviews 57% with 250,000+ audience scores, Metacritic 68 out of 100 with 24 critic reviews, 5.9* out of 10 with 680 ratings, The Guardian 4* out of 5* Peter Bradshaw, 4* out of 10* The Rich review by Cameron Richardson, Common Sense Media Jeffrey M. Anderson, 4* out of 5* age 16+, Amazon 4.3* out of 5* with 4096 reviews.

Special Note:  Steven Spielberg consulted with the filmmakers and convinced them to change the original ending.  Spielberg had to stop watching the film halfway through on a home screener because he was genuinely spooked by his viewing experience!!  He completed it in daylight hours the next day and he loved it.  The actors weren't given scripts but were given guidelines on how to behave or what to discuss in their scenes.  The entire movie was filmed in Oren Pell’s home.  Dreamworks wanted to remake the movie with a bigger budget and better known actors rather than release the film as it was. They would use the original film as a DVD extra.  During the first test screenings, people started leaving the theater?  Originally, the crew thought this was because the film wasn't going over very well with its audience?  Later they discovered that people left the auditorium because they couldn't handle the intensity of the film??  

Mistakes:  In the original Director's cut of the film, the name of the dermatologist recommended by the psychic is Dr. Johan Abrams.  In the theatrical version, every time his name is mentioned it is noticeably re-dubbed as "Dr. Johan Averies”?  At 39:39 we hear a door opening sound as Micha goes out to the porch but there is no door?  A little over 2 minutes into the movie, Micah is making dinner.  There is clearly a bottle of red pasta sauce and a take out coffee cup on the counter.  Katie pours them both a glass of wine.  In the next cut, his wine glass is gone?  Katie is drinking a bottle of water?  On the counter is a bag of lettuce or some other vegetable  (not part of their dinner) and two bottles of vitamins?  Then they are eating dinner and she has her wine glass back?