Movie Assignment – “Paranormal Activity”

Belief in supernatural occurrences is a common phenomenon in the world. Many do or do not believe in it. However this movie was one that may shake perceptions of such beliefs. Paramount Pictures presents a film by Oren Peli “Paranormal Activity” starring Katie Featherston, Micah Sloat, Mark Fredrichs, Amber Armstrong and Ashley Palmer. The film was directed, written and edited by Oren Peli. It was produced by Jason Blum and Oren Peli. “Paranormal Activity” is one of the creepiest of horror films I have ever witnessed and given me what one may call ‘true entertainment’. The plot is pretty straight forward that is of a young, middle class couple who move into what seems like a typical suburban tract house, however the main conspiracy lies in how they become increasingly disturbed by a presence that may or may not be demonic, but is certainly most active in the middle of the night, especially when they are asleep. It is one such movie that grips its viewers and leaves them in absolute awe and dumbstruck. As each scene builds on or moves on to the next I was left in absolute curiosity. It questions are beliefs on supernatural occurrences or fantastical things such as demons, spirits and ghosts. Some scenes completely baffle you to reason out your beliefs and this is when our emotions are aroused and takes over our thoughts blocking our mind to think any sort of reality to justify our beliefs depicted in the film. However this is my perspective generalized. The director and producer of this film have taken utmost advantage of technology to display what they want us to believe. Shooting the film has been done in a very skilful manner not allowing its viewers to take second opinions on it, for example many viewers would often try to justify themselves with the position and angles the camera had been place to shoot the film in order for them to confirm that such surreal happenings are false. However I too was one such viewer who was unsuccessful in uncovering the ‘behind the scenes’ mystery, and fell into the trap of the director. In fact the film was such a success in laying out its plan that a few days after the first screening, the director, Peli, had being approached by all kinds of people from that first audience, men and women in their 20s, 30s, and 40s. They all reported having problems of sleeping at night, sometimes for several nights. “At first I thought people were just using a figure of speech to describe a scary movie,” Peli says. “But reports of sleeplessness have persisted after every screening since.” So we may see the impact this film had on the emotions of its audience who miserably failed to reason. Language is another key factor that aided the advancement of the plot. This film had been rated R for language; it was in English with colloquial dialogues used by its actors. This added flavour in bringing about the intensity and disturbing atmosphere of the story. At the end of the film I was convinced of existence of supernatural beings being taken aback by this marvellous production.