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What Happens When You Sleep? Apparently Nothing

A door opening and closing, sheets moving and a demon that can summon a sonic boom make up the majority of scares in Paranormal Activity.
This was the directing debut of Oren Peli who filmed the movie in his own house and on a budget of $15,000. The movie uses the same camera work as The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield and uses unknown actors to try and drag you into the world.
The movie revolves around these two unknown actors, Katie (Katie Featherson) and Micah (Micah Sloat) who just moved into a new home in San Diego. Since they moved in, Katie has been complaining about strange things happening and that causes Micah to buy a video camera.
They then start to document their home through this new camera and over the course of several nights they start to record strange things happen and hear footsteps and whispers. Then we learn that Katie has been followed by a demon since she was a child and he wants her.
That’s basically as deep as the story goes, because it’s not a movie that’s trying to get you that way it’s trying to get you with it’s scares. Because, if you sit back and think about the story after you watch it really is dumb.
Now the scares in this movie are not good or scary, I know there is going to be a lot of people sending me comments and emails about this, but the fact of the matter is that I was not scared at all. I laughed a lot, I mean if you don’t laugh at somebody getting dragged out of their bed, then what’s wrong with you?
Yes the scares are boring and we’ve seen it all before. The movie is also repetitive, the “scary” things only happening at night and the camera always has the same angle of the couple’s room. There is not much variety here and it caused me just to become bored. I wish the theater had a fast forward button so I could have gotten through the day parts quicker, they just went on forever and really never offered anything remotely interesting.
The movie does take some pointers from The Blair Witch Project mainly the camera work and the night and day system, but Blair Witch did it more effectively. When you sat down and watched Blair Witch you were going through an intense experience with the characters. Even when the sun came up in the Blair Witch you still saw the characters fighting for survival but in Paranormal Activity when the day time came it just seemed like they weren’t too fazed by what happened the night before. This could have been because the performances from the two stars was never believable at any point in the film and is one of the reasons I was dragged out of the experience the moment Katie pulls into the driveway in the beginning.
I do have to give the film credit for trying though. Even though I didn’t like it, there is going to be people out there who will love it and be scared out of their minds, but after watching hundreds of horror movies this one just doesn’t hold up.
To sum everything up the movie lacks in so many areas for me. It’s night and day system is boring and repetitive, the whole demon story line is just dumb and the actors really didn’t deliver much of a performance to make me believe in their world. I don’t understand why so many people are given this a high score it’s doesn’t deserve this much praise. It was over hyped and the movie is lackluster.
Save your money, wait for DVD or TV.

D

31 Days of Horror 2: Carrie

October 31, 2009: Carrie
Happy Halloween everyone and today marks the end of 31 Days of Horror 2. I would like to thank everyone for making this very popular once again. But before we end it we still have one last movie to mention and that's Carrie.
This was Brian De Palma's breakout hit and of course it was based on the classic Stephen King novel of the same name.
The movie is based on High school girls played by Amy Irving (in her film debut), P.J. Soles and Nancy Allen plot to avenge themselves on ostracized fellow student and budding telekinetic Carrie White (Sissy Spacek) after they get in trouble for pelting her with tampons. When they get popular boy Tommy Ross (William Katz) to be her date for the prom, the stage is set for some cruelty and fiery retribution. De Palma uses split screens, slow motion, color filters and tracking shots to imbue the proceedings with a haunting, allegorical elegance. John Travolta has a memorable role as one of the girls' beer-guzzling boyfriends. There was a sequel in 1999 that was just awful and there was also a short-lived Broadway musical.
If you haven't seen Carrie, do yourself a favor and watch it.
Well that concludes my second year of 31 Days of Horror - so you now have 62 movies to watch if you combine my two lists together. That's a lot of movies and they all should be watched at least once.


Brian De Palma's commercial breakout, based on a novel by Stephen King, helped launch a whole slew of teen-based horror films, and Carrie the blood-spattered prom queen has taken her throne in the...

31 Days of Horror 2: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

October 30, 2009: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

Don Siegel's cult classic, interpreted as an allegory of both McCarthyism and Communism, is undoubtedly one of the screen's most disturbing evocations of paranoia. The movie Kevin McCarthy as Dr. Miles Binnell, a physician whose arrival in the emergency room of a San Francisco hospital leads the staff to believe he's lost his mind. In a series of flashbacks, he unwinds a bizarre account of his last few days. After his return from a trip to rural Santa Mira, his nurse, Sally (Jean Willes), explains that his office has been flooded with patients who have made appointments yet never appeared. Former girlfriend Becky Driscoll (Dana Wynter) tells him that she's unable to rid herself of the belief that the man claiming to be her uncle is an impostor. Then a young boy refuses to return home, claiming that his mother is not his mother. Miles's concern over this pattern of incidents, temporarily allayed by some jargon from the town psychiatrist, is newly aroused when he gets a phone call from friend Jack Belicec (King Donovan), who begs him to come over and take a look at the strange mannequinlike figure that's suddenly appeared on his pool table. This exceptionally well written and directed fable, the ultimate comment on the subtly coercive conformity of the 1950s, may be Siegel's best film, and it is undoubtedly one of the most exciting science fiction films ever made.

31 Days of Horror 2: House on Haunted Hill (1959)

October 29, 2009: House on Haunted Hill (1959)

Vincent Price does it again in this amazing haunted house movie - House on Haunted Hill.

Vincent Price has one of his best roles as millionaire Frederick Loren, who invites five guests out to a genuine haunted house, offering them each $10,000 if they spend the night. Mr. Loren's wife (Carol Ohmart) comes along and wants to kill Frederick during the course of the evening. Severed heads, a skeleton, an acid vat, ghostly screams and a noose that creeps around on its own and strangles unsuspecting victims are just some of the treats in a film that has been spooking delighted audiences on late-night TV for decades.

By far one of the best haunted house movies ever made. Yeah, it might be a little corny and silly, but it's still great.

31 Days of Horror 2: Audition

October 28, 2009: Audition

One of the most disturbing movies of all time.

Audition is an art-house cult horror film that will be talked about for a long time to come. Ryo Ishibashi stars as Aoyama, a single father who has not dated since his wife died seven years earlier. To help find another woman to bring joy into Aoyama's life, his best friend, television producer Yoshikawa, convinces Aoyama that they should add a fake part to a show they are auditioning actresses for. After a series of comical auditions, in walks a woman whom Aoyama thinks is perfect--Asami, played by former model Eihi Shiina. But when Aoyama proves too tentative in his courting - and starts learning odd things about Asami's past - she decides to exact a revenge that filmgoers will never forget.

This film was directed by Takashi Miike's and is based on Ryu Murakami's novel. The movie starts off as a slow romance but is quickly changed up to a fast pacing horror movie. Violence that replaces love and the last section of the film is one of the most brutal torture scenes ever put together, and it is definitely not for squeamish.

31 Days of Horror 2: Storm of the Century

October 27, 2009: Storm of the Century

Not feeling the greatest so this one is going to be quick.

Stephen King's first original television miniseries ever, STORM OF THE CENTURY is the story of a small town's struggle against an invasive stranger who knows all of their secrets and threatens to harm them if they do not give him what he wants. Ultimately, they learn that he seeks to destroy the village if they do not sacrifice one of their children to learn his black trade.

This is actually one of the better mini-series that ever graced our TV sets.