Part of Critical-Film's Coverage of the 2009 Freak Show Film Festival

I have to say that what I experienced in watching this film is almost as important as the "magic" of how I saw the film. A friend of mine who shall remain nameless, to protect the innocent, works as a projectionist at a theatre and he invited me to come and watch this film "after hours".

One of the things that he was able to do because of this, was turn ALL of the lights off in theatre and sound way up... So I had the pleasure of seeing this film on the big screen, in an empty theatre, in pitch black...

The perfect environment for a great horror film.

And this is one.

The film plays off of the idea that a Day Trader in San Diego buys a video camera to see if he can capture evidence of the "ghost" that is plaguing his girlfriend who has recently moved in with him, yet she had never told him that she's been haunted most of her life. Things get more, shall we say complicated, when the couple find out that it's not a ghost that is bothering her but rather a demon.

The characters aren't written with any extreme complexity, but the performances given come off as very real people in that they are not archetypes (something the horror genera is way over loaded with), but rather they are your next door neighbor or your good buddy from back in the college days.

I'm not saying this movie is all smoke and mirrors or that it has a brilliant twist, but the fact that it is so bare bones, I think, is very much what creates an understandable and relatable vulnerability. Yet as counter point to the films almost non-existent special effects (looks like someone - the director of this film, Oren Peli - finally got the idea it's what you don't see that's scary), what the film draws off of is the sound mixing, which I think is part of the tradition of making a great haunted house film that goes back to 1963s, The Haunting.

I also have to say the movie's usage of very dark shadows has one looking into the blackness, to see if they are missing any kind of slight movements. While this was obviously shot on DV and there is a bit of pixilation, the poor image quality lends itself to our imagination regarding what may or may not be in the dark.

It's hard to freak people out… It's hard to make people feel anything, never-the-less that tingle of fear of what's hiding in the dark. Paranormal Activity delivers.