Paranormal Activity: Don't see it - Page 4

this.

i'm surprised no one here has mentioned the obvious. this is a movie about a demon, and if you are someone who has absolutely no belief in demons, this will seem like a stupid movie that won't scare you at all. if you believe in demons or are openminded to their existence, this movie could scare the hell out of you.

thanks for that man!!

+1

i thought we are all grown ups here, do you still check your closet for boogie man before going to bed?

im sorry man, he was talking about demons. not childhood fears like boogie mans.

Interesting if true, because the ending sucked. This isn't really accurate I don't think. Most horror movies have at least some fantastical elements that people don't actually believe in, but horror movies that are truly frightening use these devices to tap into our true and vague inner fears. I don't believe in any kind of ghost or demon, but this movie scared me. No LOLXTIANS in this thread please. And I enjoyed The Orphanage but PA is a thousand times more tense.

I thought they did an excellent job of creating tension and dread. Once you cared about the characters, and got the idea that bad crap happened at night, you were drawn in---searching the entire frame and waiting for something terrible to happen. You didn't know what was going to happen or where on the frame, and that tension was pretty scary. It's not the door moving that is scary to the viewer, it's the waiting. And they do that so effectively. If you look at some of the scary scenes in, say Halloween, the scary stuff isn't the boogieman stabbing some lady, it's the way Carpenter makes you wonder where the hell he is. It's the knowing that something terrible is there. All that tension is released on the stabbing or a door moving. People scream at that release point, but the fear was built and existed during the scenes where Nothing Happened.

It's doubly impressive that they didn't even have the use of music (given the premise of the film) that other psychological horror relies on so heavily. I thought they were very effective in using creative techniques to que the audience in a way that music is usually used.

But in the end, you can never expect the Scare That Releases The Tension to be as scary as you actually expect. You're an adult. You're imagination is way worse than what they can show you on screen. Hence, why the scenes where Nothing Is Happening are necessary and effective in PA. There's dread in those scenes. I'll quote Roger Ebert: "It illustrates one of my favorite points, that silence and waiting can be more entertaining than frantic fast-cutting and berserk f/x. For extended periods here, nothing at all is happening, and believe me, you won't be bored."

So I say: watch it---not because it's the scariest movie ever in the history of film, but because it's effective horror. And we don't get much effective horror out of the States anymore, so it's just refreshing to see some.

+1, I didn't know a whole lot about the movie other than the title brought to mind that "Ghost Hunters" show (very bad thing). I didn't find it terrifying, but did think that it was much better than 99% of modern horror movies. I've also never seen people in a theater react that strongly to a movie, which I think says something. Seeing someone puke out of fear probably would have made my decade.