Weekly Review -- The unseen hours

Paranormal Activity (2007) -- Low-budget horror seems to have become a bastion for needy fans in recent years, each release offering different things for different tastes. Starting with The Blair Witch Project, slicing and dicing through the torture porn trend and ending with Oren Peli's Paranormal Activity, these films -- some good, some pure exploitation -- have shown that the demand for non-CGI scares is alive and well. What Peli's film also shows, though, is the beauty of minimalism within the expansive realms of imagination. Student Katie (Katie Featherston) and day trader Micah (Micah Sloat) would be enjoying a comfortable life in suburban San Diego, were it not for a pestering supernatural force that literally keeps them awake at night. In order to try and get rid of it, they enlist the help of a psychic and record the nightly goings-on, but the entity keeps getting more powerful... Peli manages to create a high level of suspense using few props and a story based on the unknowable, while it is the candid chemistry between Featherston and Sloat that makes the proceedings relatable. The documentary style works well in displaying an ordinary couple's growing frustration and helplessness in the face of mystifying evil, making the film feel like a home movie from hell. The demonic presence is portrayed in a subtle and organic manner; there are no loud music innuendos or overacting bravados to announce it, only old-fashioned bumps in the night and details that somehow do not fit into the general picture of happy suburbia. I also liked the fatalist element of an apparition in a character's life, since it added another dimension of the inescapable to the story and distinguished it from various other cinematic hauntings. Paranormal Activity is proof that imagination does not hinge on a big budget and that, in fact, huge resources can potentially overwhelm a story that is best told through the usage of bare necessities.

8/10