I Don't Want To Step On Any Toes
But Paranormal Activity sucked a dick. God I hated that movie. And what potential, too. What they were going for actually could have been a great movie, the whole thing with the demon basically fucking with them was interesting and could have been done well. But ENOUGH WITH THE SHAKY CAMERA. If this really happened and demons were amongst us, possessing overweight chicks to kill their occasionally amusing but also pretty stupid boyfriends before running into the night (oops, spoiler), I STILL wouldn't watch this movie because it would make me motion sick. And Jesus, talk about taking your time to get to a fucking point. They harped on a door moving on its own for at least 15 minutes, no lie. It got so bad that every time a door was moved, even if was opened by a person walking through it, I would grab Travis' wrist and make scaredy face just to add some kind of fun to this movie. And here's how you know it's a genuinely terrible film: I sat down with Travis who told me before it started, "I heard people were watching this and praying. I'm ready to be scared shitless." He went from THAT level of energy to hatred in twenty minutes, at most.
Oh and before I continue (and I will return to this point I'm about to make as well), the hayseeds in the audience, of course they gasped at the door moving like it was really happening and they weren't just watching a movie.
GET TO THE POINT ALREADY. And by the way, you have to watch every "major" scene of this movie twice: once when it happens, the second time when tape themselves watching their tape. It's like the eternal banality. Only the last thirty minutes of this movie are worth a shit, and even those are marred by bad acting. Every time the actors are tasked with relating something plot relevant, like when the guy goes in the attic and finds a burned picture of the woman's house when she was a girl (because it burned down mysteriously, and the firemen couldn't figure out why [another piece of info that was delivered poorly, by the way]) and she asks, "where was it?" and he says, "It was above the bed." It completely spoiled the pretty well done angle of the demon walking through the baby powder the boyfriend had laid on the ground just to fuck with them. Later, when she gets pulled out of bed and starts getting dragged down the hall, I thought, alright, now we're watching something interesting. But then he gets her and they stay in the fucking house and cry and hold each other! I'm sorry, but at a certain point (and I say this also of every bad zombie/disaster movie I've seen) if your survival instinct doesn't kick in, then I want you to die. The fact that they aren't out of the house that night, let alone the next morning is stupid. Oh, the girl wants to stay now. Too fucking bad, get in the car fatty. And her last words are all demon-voicy, so of course this is the one tape you don't deign to immediately rewatch. In fact, that shot makes absolutely no sense, since the camera is just on, recording her laying in bed and he's not even in the room. Considering she hates the camera for even being there, why would she decide suddenly that she loves it, turn it on with her toe and start filming herself? And then stop after her boyfriend's horrible "I can't believe you're not getting in the car now" acting. The last scene, which is supposed to scare your face off, is just terrible. She wakes up and stands by his side of the bed for 3 hours just hovering, and this is the only legitimately creepy part about this scene (and obviously, it's not very). Then she goes downstairs very slowly (ooooh, make way ladies and germs, suspense coming through!) and out of camera view and there's nothing for like thirty seconds. Then she starts screaming, and he wakes up and runs downstairs to see why, and then he starts screaming, and then it's quiet for another thirty seconds. If this reads boring, it's because it is, and at this point in the film, since you've waited two hours for this payoff and it's almost a nonevent, it's also enraging. If it all stopped here and faded to black, it would be an alright ending I suppose, because it would at least leave it up to your imagination. Maybe that's a little too Blair Witch, but I'll take that dull film over this one any day. But instead, you hear her slowly stomping up the stairs, and then suddenly, she throws his body from the darkness into the camera, knocking it over (oops, spoiler). And of course everyone screams because they are (as Yahtzee so eloquently puts it) pants-on-head RETARDED. This is the biggest reminder that you are watching a movie EVER. The demon is showing you that in addition to being evil, he knows he has an audience to entertain, and he can't just leave us hanging upstairs, wondering what's happening. No, he's got to put on his tap dancin' shoes and give us a show. So then he/she/it crawls up to the fallen camera and sniffs his body (because that's scary and not what a person who isn't possessed would do) and then jerks her face towards the camera while screaming, and her face turns demonic before cutting off. That's right, end with a cheap jump scare because after all is said and done, after two hours of fucking dilly-dallying around with a plot that occasionally even the writers lose interest in, that's all you have: a cheap scare, you hack director. And then they end with the highly masturbatory, "Micah's body was discovered two weeks later by the local police department.....they are still searching for Katie" text on black screen because OMG YOO GUYZ THIS RELLY HAPEND! I knew this film was going to be a self-congratulatory piece of shit when I saw the opening, where they thanked the police department "for allowing this movie to be shown." Ugh. If you want to maintain the illusion of this is real, you probably shouldn't send the two actors from the film on a press tour to hype the movie. I mean, since they are no-names anyway, it's not like they are helping you sell the film, which is already basically selling itself. You could get any two shmoes to help sell this thing, while hiding the two "victims" in anonymity.
This is how you know people in society are stupid, when they freak out and start crying at shit like this. The theater we were in literally gasped and screamed, collectively, especially at this final scene, but also at almost every 'scare' (INCLUDING THE GODDAMN DOOR MOVING THREE INCHES). I swear to you, when the dude's dead body was thrown at the camera (oops, spoiler), I heard a girl immediately after the screaming say, "Why is this happening?!" This is what you get when you subvert natural selection. You get a room full of fucking rubes. Rubes! This scene alone is a perfect test of intelligence. If after viewing it, you find yourself wondering if there is a God and panicking wildly, you are not burdened with what is collectively known as intellect. You can probably run faster than other people based on the merit of having only half of a brain weighing you down. Not since Transformers 2 have I wanted so direly to see a crowd perish in a fire.
I am told that horror movie fans are the ones who hate this film. I am not a horror movie person. I didn't hate this movie because it didn't follow the tenets of horror. I hated it because it was a terrible film. I can't deal with scary movies. They totally screw up my sleep, they make it impossible for me to get any kind of rest. This movie messed me up in a different way, in a Woody Allen kind of way: I was kept awake by my irritation with it. This movie was so bad it made me understand Annie Hall in a new light. I couldn't sleep because my mind kept coming up with new ways this movie was dumb or horribly written. Why was the guy carrying around a camera for the part where he was looking for his missing girlfriend, which no human being would waste time doing? Why didn't he leave when he saw that his picture was scratched up and it was obvious to anyone with a brain that the demon was going to kill him? Why didn't they leave, or try to find some other kind of help, or do anything except keep sleeping in the same fucking room as things got worse? Why did you just allow yourselves to be steamrolled by the supernatural without putting up any kind of fight? Why wouldn't you leave your girl? Supermodels, supermodels, have been dumped for less than being possessed by a fucking demon. This girl was a 6 at best, from the most flattering angles. Just LEAVE. It's that easy. Although now that I think about it, the same could have been said to me at any point in this movie, and that in the end is what bugs me the most.
I could have just left.
Oh and before I continue (and I will return to this point I'm about to make as well), the hayseeds in the audience, of course they gasped at the door moving like it was really happening and they weren't just watching a movie.
GET TO THE POINT ALREADY. And by the way, you have to watch every "major" scene of this movie twice: once when it happens, the second time when tape themselves watching their tape. It's like the eternal banality. Only the last thirty minutes of this movie are worth a shit, and even those are marred by bad acting. Every time the actors are tasked with relating something plot relevant, like when the guy goes in the attic and finds a burned picture of the woman's house when she was a girl (because it burned down mysteriously, and the firemen couldn't figure out why [another piece of info that was delivered poorly, by the way]) and she asks, "where was it?" and he says, "It was above the bed." It completely spoiled the pretty well done angle of the demon walking through the baby powder the boyfriend had laid on the ground just to fuck with them. Later, when she gets pulled out of bed and starts getting dragged down the hall, I thought, alright, now we're watching something interesting. But then he gets her and they stay in the fucking house and cry and hold each other! I'm sorry, but at a certain point (and I say this also of every bad zombie/disaster movie I've seen) if your survival instinct doesn't kick in, then I want you to die. The fact that they aren't out of the house that night, let alone the next morning is stupid. Oh, the girl wants to stay now. Too fucking bad, get in the car fatty. And her last words are all demon-voicy, so of course this is the one tape you don't deign to immediately rewatch. In fact, that shot makes absolutely no sense, since the camera is just on, recording her laying in bed and he's not even in the room. Considering she hates the camera for even being there, why would she decide suddenly that she loves it, turn it on with her toe and start filming herself? And then stop after her boyfriend's horrible "I can't believe you're not getting in the car now" acting. The last scene, which is supposed to scare your face off, is just terrible. She wakes up and stands by his side of the bed for 3 hours just hovering, and this is the only legitimately creepy part about this scene (and obviously, it's not very). Then she goes downstairs very slowly (ooooh, make way ladies and germs, suspense coming through!) and out of camera view and there's nothing for like thirty seconds. Then she starts screaming, and he wakes up and runs downstairs to see why, and then he starts screaming, and then it's quiet for another thirty seconds. If this reads boring, it's because it is, and at this point in the film, since you've waited two hours for this payoff and it's almost a nonevent, it's also enraging. If it all stopped here and faded to black, it would be an alright ending I suppose, because it would at least leave it up to your imagination. Maybe that's a little too Blair Witch, but I'll take that dull film over this one any day. But instead, you hear her slowly stomping up the stairs, and then suddenly, she throws his body from the darkness into the camera, knocking it over (oops, spoiler). And of course everyone screams because they are (as Yahtzee so eloquently puts it) pants-on-head RETARDED. This is the biggest reminder that you are watching a movie EVER. The demon is showing you that in addition to being evil, he knows he has an audience to entertain, and he can't just leave us hanging upstairs, wondering what's happening. No, he's got to put on his tap dancin' shoes and give us a show. So then he/she/it crawls up to the fallen camera and sniffs his body (because that's scary and not what a person who isn't possessed would do) and then jerks her face towards the camera while screaming, and her face turns demonic before cutting off. That's right, end with a cheap jump scare because after all is said and done, after two hours of fucking dilly-dallying around with a plot that occasionally even the writers lose interest in, that's all you have: a cheap scare, you hack director. And then they end with the highly masturbatory, "Micah's body was discovered two weeks later by the local police department.....they are still searching for Katie" text on black screen because OMG YOO GUYZ THIS RELLY HAPEND! I knew this film was going to be a self-congratulatory piece of shit when I saw the opening, where they thanked the police department "for allowing this movie to be shown." Ugh. If you want to maintain the illusion of this is real, you probably shouldn't send the two actors from the film on a press tour to hype the movie. I mean, since they are no-names anyway, it's not like they are helping you sell the film, which is already basically selling itself. You could get any two shmoes to help sell this thing, while hiding the two "victims" in anonymity.
This is how you know people in society are stupid, when they freak out and start crying at shit like this. The theater we were in literally gasped and screamed, collectively, especially at this final scene, but also at almost every 'scare' (INCLUDING THE GODDAMN DOOR MOVING THREE INCHES). I swear to you, when the dude's dead body was thrown at the camera (oops, spoiler), I heard a girl immediately after the screaming say, "Why is this happening?!" This is what you get when you subvert natural selection. You get a room full of fucking rubes. Rubes! This scene alone is a perfect test of intelligence. If after viewing it, you find yourself wondering if there is a God and panicking wildly, you are not burdened with what is collectively known as intellect. You can probably run faster than other people based on the merit of having only half of a brain weighing you down. Not since Transformers 2 have I wanted so direly to see a crowd perish in a fire.
I am told that horror movie fans are the ones who hate this film. I am not a horror movie person. I didn't hate this movie because it didn't follow the tenets of horror. I hated it because it was a terrible film. I can't deal with scary movies. They totally screw up my sleep, they make it impossible for me to get any kind of rest. This movie messed me up in a different way, in a Woody Allen kind of way: I was kept awake by my irritation with it. This movie was so bad it made me understand Annie Hall in a new light. I couldn't sleep because my mind kept coming up with new ways this movie was dumb or horribly written. Why was the guy carrying around a camera for the part where he was looking for his missing girlfriend, which no human being would waste time doing? Why didn't he leave when he saw that his picture was scratched up and it was obvious to anyone with a brain that the demon was going to kill him? Why didn't they leave, or try to find some other kind of help, or do anything except keep sleeping in the same fucking room as things got worse? Why did you just allow yourselves to be steamrolled by the supernatural without putting up any kind of fight? Why wouldn't you leave your girl? Supermodels, supermodels, have been dumped for less than being possessed by a fucking demon. This girl was a 6 at best, from the most flattering angles. Just LEAVE. It's that easy. Although now that I think about it, the same could have been said to me at any point in this movie, and that in the end is what bugs me the most.
I could have just left.
Comments
People are sucking dick over this movie and it's bothering me a lot.