Paranormal Activity (2007/2009)

Submitted by Joshy on Sun, 10/25/2009 - 16:44

Please note this movie had just arrived at cinemas near me, two years later. If you recall, it had to be voted into your city by the public.
So, there.

Basic Plot

A couple are haunted by a demon that's been following the female character since the age of 8. It's hate progresses as the movie goes on due to the male characters actions and attempts to provoke it to do more things.

In-Depth

Before I begin this part, let me first just say that I am a bitch. I'm scared easily by most scary movies and will probably sleep with the lights on for a few days after. Now that that's out of the way, I can start this thing.

A young couple just moved together into a nice sized house. Micah, pronounced Meek•Uh, (Micah Sloat) discovers that his soon-to-be fiancee, Katie (Katie Featherston) has been haunted by a mostly-harmless ghost (later claimed to be a demon) since the young age of 8.

The movie starts with Micah and his fancy new ghost-hunting camera. The whole movie is shot through this camera to give us a sense of realism, as well as loneliness, because we feel there are no crew members around. The atmosphere worked very nicely, it was indeed creepy.

So after a few experiences with noises, Micah sets the camera in their room, facing the open door to the hallway. This is the scene that all the creepy shit happens, and whenever this scene was on, I got tense and anxious about what creepy thing was going to happen this time. Basically, everytime this showed up as the film progressed, the scary thing that happened got worse and worse. For example, in one scene we see the door close a little bit, then suddenly open up again for no apparent reason. But in the next scene, Katie will stand up and stand next to the bed for a few hours, then go back into bed. It's like this throughout the entire movie. Micah provokes the demon, and worse things happen. It was incredibly exciting to me.

The scene that will haunt your nights after this movie.

This movie only had one other character worth mentioning, the psychic (Mark Fredrichs), and he doesn't even have a big part. Since we only see these two characters, it adds to the seclusion.

Now, as a scary movie, it scared the hell out of me. It was a great movie-going experience, because you feel connected with the crowd at the theaters. Everybody tensing up and screaming at the same time was fun and funny.
As an entertaining movie, it was that, too. The whole concept was awesome. The execution and special effects couldn't have been any better.

Despite what I said earlier about being a bitch when it comes to scary movies, I just had to watch the screen every second to see what bizarre shit would happen. There are mixed thoughts on this movie, but believe me when I say it was worth watching from start to finish. Speaking of the finish, there are a few variations on the ending of the movie. This next part MAY contain spoilers.

The ending I saw was Katie walking out into the hallway, screaming incredibly loud, and causing Micah to run out and rescue her. Suddenly, all screaming stops from both characters, and Micah is thrown into the bedroom (which was the only part I kind of jumped at). Katie then walks up to him and pushes her face against him for some reason, then looks up and notices the camera. While smiling, she lunges at the camera and the screen goes black and thus ends the movie. Upon reading about the other endings, I find this one to be the least interesting. From Wikipedia, here are the other two:

"The original ending, as attached to the video sent to potential distributors, has Katie returning to the bedroom, after the struggle heard downstairs, wielding a knife and having blood on her tank top. She sits next to the bed and rocks back and forth throughout the remainder of the following day. Her friend Amber arrives the next night and flees the house upon discovering Micah's body downstairs. When two police officers arrive, Katie comes out of her catatonic state and approaches them. The officers instruct her to drop the knife and shoot her after a confused Katie fails to do so. The film ends with the officers discovering the running camera. A frame from this ending has emerged online. The scenes involving the broken picture frame in the theatrical version replaced a scene in the original version in which Micah determines through the video footage that the entity spelled "Diane" on the Ouija board. Searching the internet, he finds a story about a girl named Diane who, decades earlier, had experienced a haunting similar to Katie's, and then died after chewing off her own arm during a botched exorcism."

And another:

"Another alternate ending shows Katie returning to the bedroom with the knife and slitting her own throat in front of the camera. The version of the film with this ending was shown at only one public viewing"

Like I said, those endings at least have closure. If you want to see the first-mentioned one, it's right below. I'll be honest, though, I was too afraid to check if it was really it. So if its not, let me know... And one more thing, please don't watch if you haven't seen the movie. This is pretty much a total spoiler when it comes to the story, at least. But in terms of action, even if you haven't seen the movie, but have seen this clip, I still highly recommend watching the movie. Especially considering this isn't the cut that's on most of the DVD versions of the movie.
Well, here it is:

Unfortunately YouTube, being the money-whores they are, removed all Paranormal Activity clips from their site. Please check out the alternate ending HERE (bottom of page).
This is quite a sad day. Just remember, YouTube, We made you.