Oh my god.

"Paranormal Activity (2007)" just got a wide release, and I had the pleasure of catching the midnight screening with a bunch of friends at the Roxy Theater. I cannot recall ever having been so terrified by a movie in my life. For the first time in a long time, we got to watch a horror movie that wasn't dependent upon CGI or gore or nudity, like so many others that are getting released for the Halloween season (including "Saw VI (2009)" which also played last night). The terror was in what you didn't see: the loud noises, the screaming, and the total absence of the ghost's form. Each time I expected the movie to pussy out and throw in a cliche, it ignored me, and went right along its path. Instead of wasting his money on gallons of blood, first-time director Oren Peli spent his money on letting your imagination do the work. He conditioned us for an hour and a half to tense up every time the lights went out, and then pulled that rug out from under us, too. I'm trying not to reveal too much here, so I have to be vague. What I can say without tip-toeing is that the movie let out around 1:30 AM, and my friends and I weren't comfortable enough to go to bed until 5 AM. Although we laughed and tried to ease up, we found ourselves in the grips of what could only have been PTSD every twenty minutes, as we recalled scenes from the movie that made our skin crawl. I would be listening to a friend tell a hilarious story, but I would be off in space, reminiscing about this movie, hypersensitive to all the creeps and bumps in the building around me. Oh, and still scared out of my fucking mind.

All I can really say is that you need to go see this movie. There are certainly some people that won't find it frightening and will think that it was boring. And that's fine. You're allowed to be wrong. Even if it's not your cup of tea, it's still a really innovative movie that's found a good balance between the shaky cam fixation and standard haunting stories. Its predecessors can't compare.

Verdict: So Stoked. Theater was almost full, and everyone stood outside afterwords shaking, but not from the cold, and laughing, but not because anything was funny. This movie is worth your money.