items tagged with Katie Featherston

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3

Let’s cut right to it, because in the end, whatever complaints I have about the movie are irrelevant: Paranormal Activity 3 scared me silly.

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2

Paranormal Activity 2, which serves as both sequel and prequel to last October’s low-rent horror smash, employs the same scare tactic that made its predecessor such a shivery good time: An unbroken, stationary, nighttime shot that we stare at for long seconds while waiting – and waiting – for an unseen demon to subtly (or not-so-subtly) announce its presence. The difference, though, is that instead of a nocturnal view of a young couple’s master bedroom, director Tod Williams’ follow-up gives us six camera setups of its type, each positioned in a different part of a sprawling California dwelling. You’d think this would result in six times the spooky fun, but sadly, Paranormal Activity 2 is only about one-sixth as scary as the original, and even that might be a generous estimate.

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY

It's not often that you witness an image in a horror movie (or in any movie, really) that you instinctively recognize as iconic. The last one I can think of in the scare-flick genre would probably be Heather Donahue in The Blair Witch Project, with her wool cap, her nose running, and her mouth out of camera range as she videotapes a final, tearful apology. (Seeing that shot for the first time in 1999, you knew it was one that would endure - and be parodied ad nauseam.) But we now have a new addition to the Iconic Image Hall of Fame thanks to Paranormal Activity, which, like Blair Witch, was filmed on a shoestring budget, and which features a shot, like that of Donahue, that will no doubt be instantly identifiable for generations of horror-movie fans.