Loompa Wranglin' at the Movies: Paranormal Activity

Have you ever been so terrified you wanted to cry? Me neither…until I rented Paranormal Activity.

Hororfests, such as the Jason movies or Chainsaw Massacre, can be difficult to watch. Obviously, watching someone be decapitated or sliced and diced faster than a health care bill disturbs the average human.

And Exorcist scared millions as it showed us a little girl spewing pea soup all over a priest—though I wonder how scary it would have been had the soup been potato.

Really, though, who enjoys pea soup? As someone experienced with kids the same age as that character, let me offer this to parents: if your child ever requests pea soup, even once, you can be assured they are undoubtedly possessed by Satan.

But Paranormal Activity has none of the gore or gross our factor. The film commits to subtlety and Hitchcock’s principle that what you don’t see is vastly more disturbing than what you do and scares the hell out for you by letting your imagination do much of the work. For anyone who has ever laid in bed and heard a crack somewhere in the house, for all of us who think we may have spotted an odd shape or shadow darting past our peripheral vision, for every person who has felt a cool chill slide down the nape of their neck and wondered where did that noise, sight, or sensation come from—Paranormal Activity answers you. And the answer is terrifying. I won’t spoil it, other than to say it is from Hell, likes hurting things, and isn’t the Emperor from Star Wars or Sarah Palin.

Don’t believe me? Here is a list of the things Paranormal Activity is literally scarier than:

Kevin Costner’s accents.
Pirates of the Carribean’s plot
Christina Aguilera’s blood test.
Elin Wood’s backswing.
Mall Santa’s.
The current balance of your retirement account.
Dollar General toilet tissue.
Centipedes.

All kidding aside, I don’t scare easily. Due to a crack-like addiction to haunted houses during my high school years as well as a warped sense of humor that considers the Saw and Final Destination films to be shining examples of slapstick humor, very little in the world of thrillers of horror stays with me more than an instant.

But Paranormal Activity, and I can’t believe I’m admitting this, actually motivated me to ask my girlfriend if she’d like to stop watching the movie. I shamefully feigned concern for her no less than five times. In truth, I wasn’t sure I could handle seeing the movie through to its an end.

And yes, I now feel like less of a man. A man that may never be able to sleep in a house alone for the rest of his life.

Rent this movie at your own risk. It gets five out of five Loompas, and officially declare it the most frightening movie I have ever seen in my life.