THE PARANORMAL INCIDENT

There’s nothing quite like a mass suicide to ensure the closure of a sanatorium is there? Well, it’s that very fate that befell the legendary Odenbrook Sanitarium back in 1929. It’s an infamous episode and, since then, we are led to believe the redundant institution has developed a notorious reputation for spectral sightings. Of course such an enigma is simply begging to be revisited by some students looking to prove (or disprove) the existence of paranormal incidents…

6 such enthusiasts are Brendan and his super hot girlfriend Blake; John, a self-proclaimed geek and tech-head; Danny, a bit of a wimp who should know better than to entertain such an idea; Tess, a paranormal believer and Samantha, a cynical, sceptical, disbelieving doubting Thomas if ever there was one! Together they troop into the eerie building, tooled up with all sorts of recording paraphernalia.

But it seems not all of the student’s intentions are exactly ethical. John, for example, thinks it would be hilarious to lock his fellow students in, while he attempts to scare the Bejeezas out of them by pulling a few pranks. BAD IDEA!

It seems the joker is about to be made a fool of himself. As for the temporarily incarcerated crew – they will soon have enough material to pass there Parapsychology Finals with flying colours. The question is… will they survive?

Well folks, this is not a spoiler, but the answer to that question is a resounding no! Why is it not a spoiler? Because before we even get introduced to John’s friends, their tragic fates are divulged to us in the opening frames of the movie. Yep that’s right! The movie begins with John getting questioned in a hospital bed, by a less then convincing detective, accused of killing his five colleagues!

Regardless of such a hasty revelation, the movie still assumes a ‘back and forth’ style, alternating between police interview and found footage. The problem is though, once we had been reliably informed the other characters were all dead, any real interest in them is immediately drained. The fact very little care had apparently been used when constructing the characters didn’t exactly help either!

Then there was the "Elephant in the Room" concept of the title itself. Even if we tried to overlook the rather brash cash in of the movies name, when engaging in some casual discourse, Samantha actually uses the words "Paranormal activity!" No no no… I’m desperately trying NOT to think of that other movie!

But when the "paranormal activity’ does actually kick in, it’s ‘subtitles’, not ‘subtleties’ that served to perplex. You see, I don’t know where they obtained their equipment, but the camcorders were so sophisticated, the words "KILL… THEM…" actually appear on the tape as the hissed demonic threats echo through the hospital! Any notions that the tapes were later doctored are dispelled when we keep cutting to the detective pausing the recording! I’m confused!

Of course then we get the mandatory ‘teen drinking sequence’, whereby a few sips of beer are enough to get the whole gang absolutely shitfaced! Oh what it is to be young again...

I remember seeing a movie called EVIL THINGS recently and, although it followed the aforementioned format, I actually found (at least the build up anyway) very effective. I put this mainly down to the manner in which the menace was slowly worked into the movie. This is clearly not the case with TPI.

The attempted scares came courtesy of self-regulating light switches, the odd door crashing shut and a hell of a lot of screaming from the irritating cast. Oh yeah, there was an obligatory ode to BLAIR WITCH when the maze like halls of the hospital merely led to a cul-de-sac "There should be a door here!" exclaimed one of the dumbfounded, map holding protagonists when faced with a brick wall!

Struggling to pad out the 80 minute run time, was an incongruous sub plot of some ill-fated love interest between John and Tess along with some irrelevant stuff about the two lovers conjuring up an ‘algorithm’ that solved the eternal mystery about the supernatural. At least we got to see some amateur porn footage revealing Brendan stupidly cheating on the delectable Blake with a busty lover. "I love your boobs" he creatively states in the throes of passion. I did too. They were bounce-a-licious, and, although they only appeared on screen for a mere few seconds, those jubblies provided more entertainment than the rest of the entire movie!

The DVD’s menu screen offers the ‘Play’, ‘Scene Selection’ and ‘Watch Trailer’ options and nothing else.

A franchise as hugely successful as PARANORMAL ACTIVITY is obviously open to cloning to some degree and I am not necessarily bemoaning that. The success of THE EXORCIST many moons ago led to a plethora of similar possession styled movies, some of, some of which were highly effective. But in the case of TPI my overall impression was that a few banal elements of lost tape yarns had been carelessly thrown together in the hope of raising scare or two.

Review by Marc Lissenburg