That was the most boring non scary movies I've seen since Blair Witch Project. There were about thirty people in the theater with me when the film started. Not that it mattered, because within 20 minutes people starting talking, texting, and cracking jokes.(My favorite heckle was when some gay sounding guy said, "Oooo I wonder if Paris Hilton is going to be in this?") Another 10 minutes later people were yelling obscenities at the screen, and cursing as they walked out. Nobody complained when my friends and I started up our own MST3K session. I surely would have hated to be working at that theater's Customer Service Desk. By the time the "big scary climax" for which I had heard so much about was upon us, the film stopped and the lights came up. An usher came in and then quickly radioed to the manager that there were still people in "Paranormal". He apologized and the the film restarted.

Sure am glad it was a free ticket or I would have walked out with the rest of the suckers, but we all agreed to see it through to the bitter crappy end as a form of punishment for optimistically holding out hope for some kind of scare that might redeem this experiment in patience. Given this film's severely low budget, complete lack of special effects, and the obvious foreshadowing, the end came about as I thought it would... Possession and Murder.

As we left the auditorium, we were greeted by the manager who gave us all passes for the interruptions and dissatisfaction with the film. "And that's when he said it, "Ya'll Fell for one of those audience reaction commercials huh? ... One of them was actually taped at our other location.". To which I responded, "Any chance I could get a second pass?" He just laughed.

That was 99 minutes of pure media hype and fake marketing I'll never get back. Despite having a new free pass and not having to shell out any money other than the cost of a box of Raisinettes... Sheesh, to have endured such a rank display of film making left me feeling as though I had just done something dumb.

God Da*n it! I'm actually getting pissed off that I've devoted additional time venting my rage at being talked into seeing something I figured would be total garbage.

I just don't get it. The reviews are all so good and word of mouth is rampant. (Hmmm, "This must have been what it was like to be one of those hype driven slobbering Obama supporters.) Honestly if this is what people find scary now, then I can only imagine the future of suspense is that of the mundane.

Sometimes it's refreshing to see a new artists' work and to give them a shot at the big time, however this film was not entertaining in the least and is nothing more than a scam. Bah!

AVIDFAN summed up it the best when he stated:

"I am inherently suspicious of these "reality" type horror movies. They are basically offering amateur actors, a simplistic script, if any, and zero production budget while asking me to pay the same price as a 100 million movie with solid actors, story, and effects.. I read books to "use my imagination." I go to the movies to see somebody else's."

Finally, SHAME ON YOU Spielberg! Your complicancy in this fraud will not be forgotten.

I'm a massive horror movie fan and I must say that I absolutely HATED Blair Witch Project.

That wasn't "cutting edge" originality, it was lazy and ordinary film making.  I hated the protagonists so much I wanted to kill them myself, so I didn't find any of what was happening scary.

Paranormal Activity reminds me of that so much I'm disgusted (yet not surprised).  I do NOT want to see this movie at all.  As soon as I started to hear the "rumours" about how scary it was and how test audiences were reacting I smelt a rat.  It's viral marketing at its worst.

And I agree with Muenster, shame on Spielberg for lending his name to this project.

I wouldn't mind seeing this film, but it seems there idea of "wide release" is less than 800 theaters, the nearest to me being over 2 hours away, so I guess this will have to be a DVD viewer for me...

 I just got to see this on Saturday and I thought while the reality-show like set-up is a bit worn it was a decent flick all around. Yeah some people may say they hate it and it's boring but not every horror movie will just kick in high gear right off the bat. Believe it or not, there is such a thing called suspense and this has a semi-descent understanding of that by building it up a bit. The only let downs for me are the actor playing Micah was a bit annoying and that I agree the climax was pretty uneventful. I would have liked to have seen the original ending and not this one tagged on it because I think that you have made more sense.

If anything I think most people that are pissed about this flick are pissed because they didn't go out and spend time making their own flick like this and making money. And anyone who is pissed cause they fell for the marketing… well then people like me that are in advertising field are doing their jobs well cause it got you in to see the film, you shouldn't be pissed at the director or producers on that one. 

Too bad you guys had some horrible audiences.  I loved it, this was a really well crafted movie.  It is nice to see a film not need a ton of blood and gore.  I have to disagree about the knocks on Micah and Katie's acting.  They acted pretty much as normal people act that's what made this film even more realistic and enjoyable for me.

I went with three friends yesterday afternoon, and they mostly hated it. I guess I'm landing somewhere in the middle of the two extremes. It was certainly not the scariest movie I've ever seen. Most of it is jump scares the audience has scouted well in advance. Hell, a third of the big scares that occur in the film are in the trailers and television spots. I hate it when a marketing campaign does that, but I guess there job is to make sure you spend the money on the ticket, not make sure you enjoy the experience.

I give the filmmakers props for working very hard to build up the suspense, and I confess that there were a couple of times where I startled a bit even though I was expecting what happened next. I think that suspense would have worked much better had they spent more time focusing on the scenes filmed from the foot of the bed and less time on the Micha character being an epic douche. It seemed like any time the picture was building steam, they'd cut to the next morning and piss it all away. Oh, and is it too much to ask for a movie that builds suspense with the less is more approach that isn't filmed in documentary style?

I'm going to side with Iracors on the acting. I think both players did what they were asked to do and did it well. Katie I thought was exceptionally good, and I hope to see her in more things. Presuming the character of Micha was supposed to be totally unlikeable, he did a pretty excellent job, too.