PARANORMAL ACTIVITY - The Scariest Movie Ever?

In a word, no. That's hype, in the same way that BLAIR WITCH wasn't the scariest movie ever. But PARANORMAL ACTIVITY is very scary and very effective.

NORMAL SPOILERS BELOW

PA is very simple -- a young couple have been experiencing strange things in their condo. The woman's had them happen to her since she was a child. The fiancee doesn't really believe in ghosts and whatnot, but he buys a fancy video camera to document the happenings. Like BLAIR WITCH and CLOVERFIELD, 100% of the film is shot POV-style from the camera, often hand-held, sometimes locked-down in their bedroom.

PA really excels in scaring folks because almost all of the scares come from the unknown. Most of them are simple things -- unexplained noises, lights turning on by themselves, a door opening and shutting by itself. PA's greatest strength is it never shows its monster, leaving it up to the audiences imagination with mostly noise and the occasional powdery footprint to give it some dimension.

PA also sets up the rules of the haunting cleanly and elegantly -- it's a demon, not a ghost; there's a guy who can help, but apparently he's on vacation the whole time; and the demon follows the girl, so leaving the condo won't help.

You get enough of the couple's relationship to buy that they're a real couple. The fights that they have over their varying approaches -- she wants to leave the demon alone because she's scared shitless; he thinks it's cool to document it and wants to taunt the creature to get better footage -- is also entirely believable.

And setting up a recurring situation with the camera locked-off in the bedroom sets an appropriate air of dread each time we return to that setup. Even if it's just odd noises, we know we're in for something scary. And when the film breaks the pattern by having a haunting in the daytime, it works very well.

The movie's biggest flaw is that the fiancee comes across as a moron in not wanting to get some outside help for their obvious haunting. He has documented proof of the supernatural going after him and his woman and yet rather than call in the demon expert (or the police or scientists), we're supposed to believe that he'll just try to solve the problem himself.

And the CGI shot at the end is a bit unnecessary. Practically the entire film works through suggestion and subtlelty; and the last shot undoes a lot of that for a cheap shock and some gore.

But it's still pretty damn scary.