THE MOVIE - PARANORMAL ACTIVITY
By Christina M. Schumacher

     There have been a great many people, I'm sure, who have spent the money to check out the new movie, "Paranormal Activity". With all the hype out there about how amazingly terrifying it is and that many people were unable to sleep with the lights off after seeing it, the hope was that someone had finally made a good movie. Thus, the multitudes going to see this movie.
     The Night Watchman and I were no different. Since my birthday was on Halloween, a number of friends all got together to celebrate with us. We met at my shop at 4:30 p.m., pooled our money, and The Night Watchman went for early tickets. The movie showing we chose was 9:25 p.m.
     We all headed two blocks down to Zeno's pizza (great place to eat, by the way, if you ever get to Marshalltown, Iowa) to have a great meal and a huge amount of laughter. We finished about 6:30 and went back to the shop.
     Becky Davenport had previously made apple cider, so we put it through the coffee pot to warm it up, added some Hot Damn, and enjoyed after dinner toddies. We spent the next three hours laughing, joking and just having a great time visiting. There is nothing like a celebration amongst like minded friends. It was a GREAT birthday!
     We talked about the movie, "Paranormal Activity" and discussed other movies that we had seen as well. We all agreed that it had been a long time since we'd seen a movie that had actually scared us, so we were really hoping that this movie would not prove to be a disappointment.
     Our first clue, upon reaching the movie theater, was the fact that we needn't have bothered getting our tickets ahead of time. My guess is that there were, possibly, fifty people total within the theater. We sat through the previews which were actually quite good. This included previews of the upcoming movie, "2012". Personally, we all have our own take on 2012 which does not match the premise of the movie, but The Night Watchman and I can't resist a good disaster movie.
     The movie finally began. Whoever the couple were who played in the movie did a fair job at being convincing as a couple. Of course, it's bound to be a little unnatural as they knew they were being filmed. They did get a bit better as the movie went on, then died out again.
     The movie goes pretty much on a night by night filming, skipping a few days here and there, with a bit of daytime talk about "their haunting". It's a slow, slow movie - almost painful to sit through.
     Now, for those who have not seen the movie and plan to regardless of what anyone shares, you might not want to read any further as I am about to give away the gist of it all.
     There were four interesting scenes within the movie. I say "interesting", but would definitely not term them scary. They were only considered interesting by any of us because we were so solidly bored that we would, by that time, accept anything that might be a little interesting.
     The first was a scene with a Ouija board where the planchette moved on its own after the couple left the house. This was intriguing, but then it caught on fire. I have to admit to laughing and making a crack that the planchette must have been moving so fast that the friction started it on fire. A ridiculous comment as the planchette wasn't moving fast at all, but everyone got it.
     The second scene involved the guy arguing with his girlfriend to allow him to put baby powder on the floor so they could see if the "ghost" or "demon" would leave any footprints. She finally agreed to let him put down the powder as long as he cleaned it up in the morning. As expected, three toed footprints were seen in the powder leaving a trail into the bedroom.
     The third scene concerned the girl in the movie being pulled out of the bed by unseen hands and dragged down the hallway, screaming the entire way. Her boyfriend, who had awakened all throughout the movie at the smallest sound, did not awaken until she was all the way down the hall. Then, he jumped out of bed and ran down the hall after her. We didn't even really get to see him wrestling to get her back as the scene was too dark and filmed a ways down the hall.
     The fourth scene was a bit of drafting on the bed sheets as though some unseen hand was lifting them up. Again, these four events within the movie took place with only about 15 minutes left in the movie, so we'd sat through no action for a long, long time.   
     Imagine now, sitting in a classroom where the instructor has left the room. When this happens, the buzz of conversation begins. After about one hour of the movie, everyone within the theater was talking quietly with whomever they were sitting with. It was just like the classroom. Everyone was so bored, they were actually talking about other things and about how disappointed in the movie they were.
     The final scene, I must admit, made almost everyone jump. Everyone, that is, except those who had seen the previews and the trailer because what they showed at the end of the movie was what they showed in the previews and the trailer. People didn't jump because they were scared, they jumped because it was unexpected for those who didn't know it was going to happen as the guy's body flew through the door and into the camera. Those who had seen the trailer and previews realized that the movie was nearly over and that they hadn't seen this scene, so there was no reaction at all.
     In our opinion, the movie was an absolute boring flop and we've seen more interesting and intriguing scenes on ghost hunting shows. The only people we can imagine being at all scared by this movie would be small children or, perhaps, people who have never had any type of paranormal experience. Even with these people, we're certain that even they would have been solidly bored until the last 15 minutes of the movie. At that point, they might accept anything as they would be nearly hypnotized by boredom.
     My birthday was an absolute smash hit with the companionship of my friends. The only downfall was spending the money to watch this movie. We definitely have something more to laugh about together though.

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