Like with anything where you know all the beats and all the outcomes, you still hope that the sum total of something is better than the parts which are rote.
PARANORMAL ACTIVITY does pull off something that hadn't been done to me in a long time. It kept me from sleeping. My skin crawled. About the only movies that still pull off that feat are THE EXORCIST and Romero's DAWN OF THE DEAD. In the case of those two movies, you're in awe of the balls it took to make them in the first place. In PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, there isn't the kind of innovation of a really iconic horror movie, and yet afterward, in the dark trying to sleep, I understood how well the moviemaker's had managed to make me uneasy.
It's funny, too, that this movie is probably another example of "no athiests in foxholes." I'm not particularly pious, nor on the other hand incredulous of the existence of supernatural phenomenon. I'm a firm believer that something is out to get you, but it usually walks on two legs and bleeds. Still, when I was a kid, my mother found religion and used to scare me with devils and gods. The howling wind I envisioned as black wraiths, and striking lightning was delivered by the Lord's fiery hands. A man I knew described seeing THE EXORCIST when he was in his teens, high and drunk. The next day, he was fresh-combed and singing in church. THE EXORCIST had reached down into him and touched among his childhood terrors with a damp hand.
Despite the hype, PARANORMAL ACTIVITY is very much a movie in the vein of Tourneur's NIGHT OF THE DEMON, since most of that movie concentrates on what is barely seen. And like that 1950s flick, PARANORMAL minorly undercuts the suspense and terror with some obvious choices. Which wasn't the fault in the case of NIGHT OF THE DEMON, as the releasing studio wanted to splice some demon puppet action in. This was done to make sure the audience was properly horrified by an actual monster, and not just shadows and sounds. Forget imagination. PARANORMAL isn't forced to stoop that far, but has its share of the too-obvious. And yet, for the most part, it's almost impossible for anyone not to be tense watching this thing.
I think too you have to consider the economics of this movie. Not of the movie itself, but of the characters in it. Young protagonists, with a house, cars, a pool, a fairly average living. The house looks exactly like most houses, functionally a house but devoid of age. This is reflective of what most of America's Middle Class goes home to every night. The sinister haunting is an invasion of personal space and personal freedoms. The next generation is feeling the rancid breath of an invisible threat to their homes, their lives, but they cannot define it. I think this movie will continue to terrify people who live in such homes, who are helpless to stop encroaching darkness.
For those in poverty, the idea of their loved one entering their dark bedroom in the night and becoming a demon is not unheard of. The violence doesn't surprise the children of poverty. Their fear is more ingrained, more real, and they don't distinguish between monsters from hell and monsters from the bottle. I don't imagine poor people will be frightened by PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, but they might be comforted by it. The idea that abuse is demon-borne must be a solace.
For myself, the movie played out the way it should, complete with an ending straight out of BURNT OFFERINGS. Not a bad thing at all, mind you. There's something about being watchful in the dark that is hardwired into human beings I think. At least, I'm wired that way. We're all so happy we have our electricity and our gadgets, closed doors and locks. But we have to turn them off sometime. And then nothing holds back the dark.
It occurs to me, the Cro-Magnon in his animal skin tending his fire in his cave, awake while his family sleeps, he was cursed to stare into that darkness. He wondered what was there. He feared the creeping sensation of something watching him, waiting for the fire to go out. I think he was lucky to have the fire, to have to think about the fire and maintain the fire. No electric switch would turn out his shield against the night and the groaning things in it. No, the fire was logic, and courage.
If demons walk the Earth, it makes one wonder who put out the fire to let them in?
There's nothing like that in ZOMBIELAND, but you do get a comedy which plays off the new cultural recognition of the "zombie" tropes and pratfalls. You get a story that plays like a deft, self-conscious discussion about how great it would be if human beings turned into monsters. Because in that world, any man is king of his own fate. The choices are your own. There is an ideal of freedom in taking what you want, taking what you can carry, and taking what has always been denied you. That might be self-respect, or a new car, or a particularly hot girl who'd never have anything to do with you otherwise. But it would be good to be king, even in an imposed cannibal hell.
