Paranormal Activity 2 brings serious scares

If you want a good scare this Halloween weekend, Paranormal Activity 2 is the movie to see.

For those that missed the original, the Paranormal Activity series are psychological horror movies shot in the Cinema Verite style, meaning they use hand-held cameras, security cameras, and other non-traditional film equipment to achieve a realistic, faux-documentary feel.  It’s been in style ever since The Blair Witch Project, and has been recently used in just about every genre to mixed results.

In Paranormal Activity 1 & 2, the Verite style has found its true home in horror.  As any movie-goer could tell you, with rare exception the quality of horror movies has been plummeting, and has recently devolved into what some call “torture porn”.  Evident in movies like Saw and Hostel, the filmmakers basically show all the gore, pain, and torture they can to get shock scares from the audience, usually at the expense of real fear and suspense.

With the Verite style, the creators of the Paranormals have brought subtlety, suspense, and true visceral terror back to film.  The mood builds slowly – a bump in the night here, a door closing by itself there - until it’s obvious an evil force is in the house with some pretty bad intentions.  The beauty of the film is how you have to frantically scan over the seemingly calm and innocuous security footage to find the next freaky occurrence before it scares you out of your seat.

For those who have seen the first, you’ll see some familiar faces as story bridges are created to connect the two films.  In essence, Paranormal Activity 2 ends up being both a prequel and sequel to the first, giving some context as to what happened outside the frame of the first story.

Also, fans of the first installment should remember how important theater atmosphere is to the effectiveness of the movie.  If you’re in Hilliard, I’d recommend the Starplex Cinema on Hilliard-Rome over the otherwise amazing Movie Tavern at Mill Run.  The food and beer are great, but the eating, talking, and waiters will detract a bit from the cold, steel grip this movie can have on your psyche.

Enjoy, and remember what it was like as a child to be terrified of the dark.  B-