31 Days of Horror - Week 2: 'Paranormal Activity,' 'Drag Me To Hell,' More

With the Halloween season in full swing, Starpulse contributing writer Kris King is watching a horror movie that has passed him by for every day in October. This week, Kris experiences Paranormal Activity, gets dragged to Hell, and watches Bill Paxton kill people with an axe.

October 8 - Paranormal Activity (2009)

Horror movies don't really scare me. They can be tense or gross, funny or creepy, but it's rare when I lose much sleep over them. Paranormal Activity is different. Paranormal Activity is scary. Even if you don't believe in the supernatural, the film's brutally slow accumulation of suspense is enough to put even the most hardened movie goer on edge.

Another entry into the surprisingly fertile found-footage genre, Paranormal Activity follows the exploits of a young couple settling in to their new house. When lights start to flicker and the kitchen sink begins turning on by itself, day trader boyfriend Micah (Micah Sloat) buys a camera to record he and his girlfriend Katie (Katie Featherston) while they sleep. What follows is an almost flawlessly executed accumulation of suspense. The camera never cuts away from Micah and Katie as they sleep (with their bedroom door open, who does that?). The clock ticks away the hours in fast motion, only slowing to the moments in the bedroom when something happens. The structure of the shot alone is enough to twist your stomach. On the right Micah and Katie lay asleep with the bedroom door on the left, with the open door and long hallway behind it making the composition structurally uneven. That void on the left opens up for nearly endless dreadful possibilities. The static image lingers to the point where even the slightest creak of the door or flick of a light switch is enough to send a shiver up your spine--and it only gets worse from there.

Paranormal Activity will likely never surpass "The Blair Witch Project" in terms of infamy or financial success, but it's by far a much more frightening experience. The movie doesn't have remarkable depth, and there is the occasional misstep (there's a scene involving a Ouiji board early on that goes comically overboard, and the movie would be better suited if it ended about 15 seconds sooner), but for the most part it stands out as a fun in-theater experience that creeps up the back of your neck like icy fingers.

Source starpulse.com