**This post contains spoilers, including thoughts on all three endings**
The Story- In 2006, Katie (Katie Featherston), and her boyfriend, Micah (Micah Sloat) experience strange paranormal occurrences in their home. Katie turns to a psychic named Dr. Fredrichs (Mark Fredrichs) for help.
Fredrichs gives the couple a stern warning about the malevolent entity lurking in their home. Katie panics, while Micah uses a series of unusual methods to uncover the truth. Katie is forced to relive dark moments from her childhood, as the entity becomes more aggressive, while Fredichs considers his limited options to solve the problem. Will Katie and Micah figure out a solution before it’s too late?
My Thoughts- We’ll just leave the house, run away, and everything will be okay! Wait, leaving the house won’t work? I’m glad they established leaving the house is not on the table for solutions early on in the movie through Dr. Fredrichs explanation about demons, and the differences between hauntings and possessions. Katie and Micah can’t run or hide. Moving to a different house or a different state won’t magically make the entity disappear. No, the entity is specifically attached to Katie. That’s truly frightening, because when you look at the big picture, Katie and Micah really don’t have a safety net.
Micah is kind of a goofball. His heart is in the right place, and he’s a good guy, but there’s no denying he makes a handful of the usual stupid horror movie mistakes here. Micah Constantly antagonizes the entity. Dr. Fredrichs and Katie explicitly warned him to avoid any attempts to contact, or basically extend an invitation to the entity. So what does Micah do? He brings an Ouija board into the house.
Is there a legitimate reason to record any of this? That’s always the big question for found-footage films. Micah is happy and obsessed with his new camera, but is that really a good enough reason to record everything? It gets to the point, where it’s basically a running joke, with Katie scolding Micah for recording. Although, considering Katie and Micah’s unusual dilemma, you could say recording is necessary for proof, while documenting a series of strange events.
The alternate ending? It’s a dud. Katie kills Micah, followed by Katie (now clearly possessed) slitting her throat, killing herself in front of the camera and that’s it? For me, it’s an ending that just doesn’t hit hard enough, after all the teasing and calculated attacks from the entity.
The 2007 Screamfest Film Festival ending concludes, with Katie being shot to death by police, and the movie is dedicated to Micah and Katie, featuring a happy picture of them together. Amber (Amber Armstrong), Katie’s friend, plays a part in this ending, because she’s the one, who discovered Micah’s body downstairs.
The Screamfest ending (or the original ending) is decent enough. A clearly traumatized Katie rocking back and forth, and sitting at the side the bed was a nice touch. It’s also a more somber ending. You can tell Katie wasn’t fully possessed yet in this ending. She sounded like her normal self, when the police arrived, and she was clearly devastated about killing Micah. Check it out below!
The theatrical ending is easily the best ending. Katie’s horrifying screams (something that happens in all three endings) from downstairs, the sight of Micah’s corpse flying at the camera, and a fully possessed Katie lunging at the screen. It all happens so fast. There’s barely any time to process the final shocking moments. Everything blends together perfectly, including a zombified Katie with her blood stained shirt, and Katie hovering over Micah’s body like a feral animal.
I’ve always believed the original Paranormal Activity would’ve benefited from a mockumentary found-footage format that’s similar to Lake Mungo or The Poughkeepsie Tapes. Paranormal Activity has too many dull stretches, and the scares are inconsistent. Breaking up the monotony of entity attacks, or does something to toy with Katie and Micah, Katie and Micah argue, something strange happens, rinse and repeat, with interviews from experts, the police, or family and friends would’ve fit perfectly with the “real footage” shown here.
A good amount of unanswered questions after this one. Who is the entity? What happened during Katie’s childhood? Who tried to burn a picture of Katie as a child? What role does Katie’s sister, Kristi play in all of this? It’s easy to see why this one opened the door for so many sequels, because there’s still a lot of material to work with to build a franchise.
Paranormal Activity takes a serious and dedicated approach to realism. No opening credits, just a message thanking the San Diego police department and Micah and Katie’s families. Micah and Katie use their real names. As far as the overall presentation goes, Paranormal Activity doesn’t look too polished. You really get the feeling you’re watching actual footage of two people suffering through a bizarre and dangerous situation. And all of the bedroom footage is catalogued with dates and different numbers, showing the downward spiral for the entity’s attacks night after night.
The nighttime bedroom scenes are genuinely eerie and spooky. The amateurish camerawork adds another layer of realism to the movie. Micah is not a professional cameraman. You can constantly see how he’s trying to get the hang of things, when he’s recording around the house, and I’m glad they didn’t feel the need to rely on excessive shaky cam stuff.
Paranormal Activity 2007 is an effective found-footage horror film. Micah Sloat plays his role well. Katie Featherston delivers a solid performance, and she is truly a SCREAM queen. The scene, where Katie is laying in bed, when she tells Micah she wants to stay in the house is so good. As soon as you see that relaxed facial expression and that calm smile on her face, you just know something bad is about to happen.
Sloat and Featherston basically carried the movie by themselves. Dr. Fredrichs and Katie’s friend, Amber (Amber Armstrong) are the only other two people, who make appearances throughout the movie, and when you compare things to Micah and Katie, their screen time is very limited.
Paranormal Activity features a handful of creepy moments and scenes. The Ouija board catching fire, the entity dragging Katie out of the bed, and the entity breathing on Katie’s neck are some of my top picks. It’s also impressive how Oren Peli managed to create a cohesive film that’s contained to one setting. You’ll only see one shot outside shot of Micah’s neighborhood, and the scene with Katie on the back porch. But the vast majority of the movie takes place inside Micah’s house.
When you strip Paranormal Activity down to its core, it’s a movie about an evil force destroying a hopeful couple’s lives, a story that doesn’t have a happy ending. Looking back, it’s wild to think about how a low budget found-footage film laid the first brick for one of the more notable horror franchises. Love it or hate it, Paranormal Activity 2007 is definitely one to remember.
Rating- 7/10
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