Paranormal Activity

I decided to do a movie that was fresh from my mind and the more recent film i watched. Paranormal Activity, by director Oren Peli, is a film about a young couple, Micha and Katie, who document their expierences with paranormal activity occurring all around their San Diego house. The cinematogrophy in my mind was pulled off very well bringing back the handheld camera view to theatres. In my mind when Cloverfield tried to pull this off, it was ruined by seeing the actual monster. In this movie, it has you on your toes from scene to scene that you know something is going to happen but your not sure what it is or for that matter, what it looks like. The wide screen bedrooms shots were done so elegantly because as soon this shot came up, the audience knew they were in for a thrill ride. This was done by slowing increasing the hype [ex. footsteps, doors closing by themselves, mysterious sounds] from beginning to end. The editing believe it or not was also key for the progression of this movie. In order to move the stuff around the house without being seen, the blue screen effect was put into place so it would appear that for example that the chandelier would move by itself which I thought was an impressive move. The acting was another major priority in this film. By casting unknowns in this film distinguish them from well known actors , which made the audience believe these were ordinary people. For me, these two people made me believe we were simply watching the reality of a couple living in San Diego, and because of that, that's what makes the acting so believable and great at the same time. The camera movement was shaky due to the fact that the camera was either held by the woman or the man. Whenever something shocking would happen, the camera would shake due to panic of the character and this only contributed to the realistic factor that this movie had on the audience. In every horror movie, the lighting has got to be a important key factor. Throughout the whole movie, your trying to guess what this monster looks like. In only one scene, you see the shadow of the monster walk by the door which i thought gave respect to beginnings like Nosferatu. In many horror movies, you gonna have those moments where a random thing might pop out and try to scare you. With this movie, it uses that effect but with a new twist. Just when you think things are alright and nothing could possibly, something pops out leaving you frighten. The audio is a huge contributor to this and in some instances in the movie, there would be no audio at all. By hearing the footsteps and thumps all around the house, that put more suspicion in the mind of the audience. Whenever a horror movie can make you have a phobia of something [Jaws:water, Psycho:showers] and for this movie, the unknown, you know it established itself as one of the greats. This is definably one to check out if your fan of horror movies in general.