Paranormal Activity

Its been a while since I have been to the movies,and seeing how missed out on District 9, Inglorious Bastards and Zombieland, I was beyond excited to see Paranormal Activity. My wife is not a "going to the movies" person and not a big fan of scary movies, which I think would make it more fun, so I had to find some cohorts for adventure. Now if you ask me the theater doesnt have enough valley girl talking, bubbling gum popping teens running around, so I took two with me. My 17yr old sister-n-law and her 16yr old friend, oh yeah and I was reminded at the ticket counter that they dont make money in school. We managed to take our seats just as the movie started, missing out on the opening written dialog, that I am still not sure its contents. The movie was low budget, it was grainy and sometimes out of focus, but you soon forget all of this. They do a good job of letting us get to know the two characters, there are only three in the film. It doesnt overkill trying to get us (the viewers) to bond with the characters, it seems to know when to stop. I dont want to get into the things that happened, it would ruin it, and I really do believe that its the suspense that makes this film. I dont see there being any replay value, unless you are watching it with a group of people whom have not yet seen it. With no major effects, blood, gore or jump out of the closet scares, this movie was probably one of the best I have watched in a while. You start to cringe when day to turns to night, you get scared, just as they would. Everyone feels safe in daylight and so did they, as they filmed and you could tell the day was wearing on, you started to get the same anxiety they did, afraid for the lights to go out. The do a great job with making even the most subtle event scary, making you not want to look at the screen, or afraid to focus because you know something may happen. The major difference in this, is most films you are to feel like one of the characters and see things through there perspective. The unforunate part of this is as a viewer sometimes we see things that are about to happen, even though our perspective tells us different, that to me takes away a lot of the suspense. Paranormal Acivity puts us in the seat of viewing what going on around them, as though we were invited into their home to see whats happen. We being the camera the actors are able to acknowledge us and take us along, we dont have the advantage of seeing whats around the corner. With this persepective one of the best parts is seeing what they cant, when they are asleep we are their eyes and ears. You feel like you want to wake them up or cover up and try and sleep with them. Some of the scariest moments was when nothing happened at all.