They’re really here

Like The Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity is hag-ridden with way too much hype to be possible to live up to. And by the same measure, if you didn’t like the former, you probably won’t like the latter. If there wasn’t already a Blair Witch 2, Paranormal Activity would comfortably serve as a long-delayed sequel.

Substituting a nice, upscale apartment for the boonies, here we join a young couple as they try to cope with an escalating amount of the eponymous problem. They set up a video cam to record their bedroom at night, and on reviewing the footage each morning they are disturbed to find that the uglies being bumped in the room aren’t of the typical bedroom variety (that is, of any bedroom north of Hell). Occasionally, someone drops by to tell them to get out. They don’t, of course.

Unfortunately, Paranormal Activity doesn’t deliver on much more than its creepy premise. There’s a whole lot of daytime jibber-jabber recorded with the shaky-cam interspersed with brief moments of nighttime goosebumps. Rinse, lather, repeat.

Despite the ballyhoo, it’s not all that, and it’s short a bag of chips, ending just when things start to get interesting. Not saying that it’s bad, just that the movie seems like it would be more effective on home viewing, on the couch with someone you’ve been dating only a short time, curled up under a blanket with nothing on except the television as the dark house creaks ominously. It’s too small of a movie to fit on the big screen.