18 September 2016

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY/WHITE NOISE: A DOUBLE REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS.




PARANORMAL ACTIVITY/WHITE NOISE: A TERRIFYING DUO OF HORROR FILM REVIEWS BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY. (2007/2009) WRITTEN, CO-PRODUCED, PHOTOGRAPHED, EDITED AND DIRECTED BY OREN PELI. STARRING KATIE FEATHERSTON AND MICAH SLOAT.

WHITE NOISE. (2005) DIRECTED BY GEOFFREY SAX. MUSIC BY CLAUDE FOISY. CINEMATOGRAPHY BY CHRIS SEAGER. STARRING MICHAEL KEATON, IAN MCNEICE, CHANDRA WEST AND DEBORAH KARA UNGER.

These are two different yet similarly-themed (if you know what I mean!) horror films which I recently watched for the first time. Late to the party on both counts- typical me!- I adored one film and absolutely loathed the other. Can you guess which one I loved and which one I hated?

One deals with the notion that we are never alone, that demons from that other world about which we know relatively little can latch onto us, the living, and make our lives a living hell. The other is concerned with EVP or 'Electronic Voice Phenomena,' the practice of catching the voices of the dead on audio recordings.

These both sound like great premises for horror films, don't they? PARANORMAL ACTIVITY is the demonic one and it's pure freaky-ass scary brilliance from beginning to end. WHITE NOISE, the EVP one, sucked to high heaven, if I may be permitted to use a technical term.

The idea of EVP is, frankly, a terrifying one. The voices of the dead coming at you from a tape recorder? I'd pee myself if ever I heard such a thing. But this film never realised its full potential, sadly. What could have been a really scary film is not only not remotely scary, but it descends into maudlin cheesiness and plotholey confusion and sheer ludicrousness about halfway through.

Michael Keaton plays Jonathan Rivers, a wealthy architect whose beautiful author wife Anna tries to contact him via EVP after she dies in a tragic accident. When Jonathan finds out that it's actually possible to do this, he's all gung-ho about it until he realises the following stark fact.

When you allow the portals to the other worlds to stand open, you're making it possible for every demonic Tom, Dick and Harry from 'the other side' to pop in for a natter and a cuppa as well. Jonathan becomes aware of the presence of evil spirits almost as soon as he begins his attempts to make conversation with Anna. What do they want, and whom are they after...?

I lost interest completely when Jonathan started using the messages from the other side to help people in trouble. Yawn...! The ending to the film was bizarre, confusing and unsatisfactory. The only remotely interesting thing about the movie was the use of cassette tapes and videotapes to capture the spirits' voices and faces. It was nice and nostalgic to see these old friends from the 'Nineties and 'Noughties. I liked Ian McNeice as the spirit conduit as well but that's about it.

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY is a million times better. Katie is a young student who's been dogged by a demonic presence since she was eight years old. She and her obviously richer boyfriend Micah, living together in their gorgeous house, decide to try to capture the 'paranormal activity' on camera.

The results are fantastically interesting for us, the viewers, but absolutely catastrophic for poor Katie and Micah, who are actually quite likeable characters. Micah's striking resemblance to a certain Cristiano Ronaldo, handsome footy star extraordinaire, doesn't exactly hinder the proceedings either, heh-heh-heh.

The film is slow-moving at times but, even when stuff doesn't seem to be happening, we're not bored at all. I personally wasn't, anyway. And when stuff is happening, it's flippin' terrifying to watch. Imagine if you were fast asleep in bed and a demon got in the bed with you and you captured this on camera. You'd be fit to be tied, haha. Katie and Micah capture all this and much more on
their trusty camera.

Would they have been better leaving well enough alone, or was this demon always going to come for Katie some day anyway and so they might as well confront the supernatural beast head-on? It's hard to say.

 I do know that I had terrible trouble sleeping after I saw this film. I tucked myself in to an insane degree at bedtime, leaving no part of myself sticking out for the boogeyman or even possible boogeymen to fiddle with.

I'm in two minds about the ending, but there are some alternate endings floating about if you're not happy with the one you're shown. This hugely successful, much-parodied movie actually started out life as an independent feature and then got picked up by PARAMOUNT, a success story by anyone's standards, and it's spawned a sequel or two as well.

It scared the living daylights out of me anyway, and if that's not the criterion by which you judge a good horror film, I don't know what is. I'm off now to have my afternoon nap. If anything other-worldly's planning on getting in with me, make sure you bring the Sunday papers and my latte. I'm not running a holiday camp here...!

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.

Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, film blogger and movie reviewer. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, womens' fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra's books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

 You can contact Sandra at:


http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com











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