It’s getting close to Halloween, and I’m sure many people are planning on celebrating by watching some scary movies. I recently watched Paranormal Activities 2, and afterwards I jumped every time the people in the room above me made a noise. I was blown away watching this movie as someone who now knows a little bit about film. First of all, if you haven’t seen the first Paranormal Activity you need to watch it beforehand. (This may seem like an obvious thing to do, but the trailer for Paranormal Activities 2 was so vague -although terrifying- that I didn’t realize that the two actually are part of the same story until I was 20 minutes into the second installment.) The creators of the Paranormal Activities movies are brilliant. This movie is like nothing I’ve ever seen before. The entire second movie is shot from a handheld camera being wielded by the actors and security cameras placed throughout the home of the haunted family. Instead of the typical decrepit, haunted house, the family lives in a beautiful, modern home in some wealthy neighborhood in California. The family is a typical American family: dad, stepmom, teenage daughter, baby, and dog. Nothing about these people or their home seem creepy at first, but you know it’s a horror movie which makes it all the worse that a dog and infant are involved.
Psychologically the creators know how to manipulate you. I guessed out loud what scary thing was going to happen in the movie over a dozen times. Not once was I correct. The movie is divided into a series of days. Everyday you see the family and learn about them, getting the sense that they’re a normal family much like your own. Then at night you see the same images over and over: pool, kitchen, stairs, baby’s room. You think something is going to happen at night, but eventually after seeing the night sequence repeatedly with nothing scary happening, you let your guard down. Not a good idea. This movie might start out with some subtle spooky activity, but it doesn’t end that way. Another thing I loved about this movie was the use of angles and composition. All the security cameras are set up in corners, so you see the rooms at tilted angles and are looking at several rooms or doors at once. It’s so visually overstimulating that you don’t know where to look- making it even more difficult to anticipate what’s going to happen and where.
Paranormal Activity 3 is even scarier than the first two films. I wasn't scared at all in the first or second Paranormal Activities, and only went to see the third because my friends wanted to. I had no idea what I was in store for! Perhaps this one was scarier because the demon possessed children instead of adults, or maybe it was scarier because I hadn't seen any of the previews so I didn't know what to expect. The ending blew my mind; it was suspenseful as well as surprising. The main character puts his camera on a fan about halfway through the movie so he can get views of the whole room. This is scary because one minute you will think you see something sketchy, then the camera moves and it's gone. I don't want to give too much away but I highly recommend this movie for anyone looking to get scared!
ReplyDeleteThere's something about the poor image quality that also makes me tense when watching these films...
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