‘Paranormal Activity’ lives up to the hype, despite its lack of originality

“Paranormal Activity”

Starring: Micah Sloat, Katie Featherston

Director: Oren… “Paranormal Activity”

Starring: Micah Sloat, Katie Featherston

Director: Oren Peli

Studio: Paramount Pictures

Grade: B

Ten years ago, a little film that you might have heard of — “The Blair Witch Project” — singlehandedly proved that a scary movie with a bare bones budget and no initial studio backing can make a lot of money. I’m talking a more than 3,000 percent profit above its production cost.

But now, witches are out, and demons are in. Enter “Paranormal Activity.”

By now, I imagine you’ve heard of the flick. The relentless viral marketing campaign has ensured that the public should be very aware of “one of the scariest movies of all time,” according to www.Bloody-Disgusting.com.

While the film might not deserve such superlative categorization, I am pleased to say that it is actually scary. Not “Saw” scary, where you imagine how twisted the writers minds that think of that many creative ways to kill people. Not “Couples Retreat” scary, where you fear for the future of Vince Vaughn’s career. It is a genuine fright fest.

Borrowing liberally from “Blair Witch’s” faux-documentary style of filmmaking, the film jumps right into the lives of a young San Diego couple who believe girlfriend Katie (Katie Featherston) is being haunted by a demon. Boyfriend Micah (Micah Sloat) buys a hulking, expensive camera — he’s a daytrader — and wants to document everything. Katie thinks it’s a stupid idea.

The film alternates between daytime shots of the couple taking turns carrying the camera around as they meander through sometimes tiresome dialogue and the infamous “surveillance” shots of the couple’s bedroom during the night. The film forces a sense of intimacy on the audience unlike any other recent film.

Of course, if you’ve seen the previews, you know that something spooky is indeed going on the house. And taking yet another tip from “Blair Witch,” “Paranormal Activity” brings the tension to a very slow boil. It gives the audience small tastes of terror for the first hour with loud noises and blink-and-you’ll-miss-it visual effects. I can promise that there is a payoff, though many will argue whether it’s worth sitting through the previous 85 minutes to get there.

One of the biggest drawbacks to “Paranormal Activity” is also its greatest strength — the fact that it is a virtual carbon copy of the “Blair Witch” formula, done to an even lower-budgeted extreme. If you liked the latter, chances are that you will like the former, but “Paranormal Activity” never really rises above the been-there-done-that ambience that seeps into every celluloid nook and cranny.

For me, it didn’t really matter. I love being scared, and there are scenes in the film that genuinely frightened me more than any film since, well, “Blair Witch.”

Sloat and Featherston never give the impression that they are putting on a performance, which I suppose is a good thing. But as the characters, especially Katie, grow increasingly irritating as the film nears the 60 minute mark (take note Hollywood: bickering couples are NEVER entertaining), you’ll wonder why the demon would want to haunt such a grating person.

For practically the entire film, the story — and in many ways, the plot itself — take a backseat to the true money maker: those surveillance shots.

It’s crazy to think that a few minutes of what amounts to security footage could frighten so easily, but the initial subtlety of these scenes, and heightened terror later on, constitute what would be the scariest YouTube video ever. But is that really a good thing?

I have wanted to like “Paranormal Activity” since I heard about it more than a year ago from some film festival because I love an underdog — especially a scary one. But now, the film is the anti-underdog: It has already cleared $65 million, and with that in mind, it’s hard not to think of the film as a smug work of manipulation.

Sure it’s scary, but one of the scariest movies ever? Definitely not. The “Blair Witch” did it first — and to a much greater degree.

The final scene in “Blair Witch” still haunts me to this day. The final scene in “Paranormal Activity” — which is suspiciously similar — is ultimately forgettable, like the film itself.