Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Paranormal Incident - Review

A while back, we posted a trailer for Paranormal Incident and kinda had a giggle about it. NETFLIX has it available for streaming viewing, so I figured I'd toss it on and give it a go.


A few moments into the movie I knew exactly what I was about to see - hungry, young actors and actresses (some willing to bare their...assets...) acting like they are real people in front of the camera...cinema verité style...hunting for ghosts. Yeah...it's kinda awful and it hurts a lot.  Someone saw THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT and was aiming for it a little. But...yeah...it's kind of a miss on most of the acting. They memorized their lines and are "acting school"-ing their way through the movie. Onward.

I couldn't spend time watching this film, to be honest. I've seen them before and, when I don't fast forward through, I get SO ANGRY that I wasted time on it. So...fast forward....

• 25 minutes in, we're watching fake, After Effects aged films and hearing more bad dialog done in post. 

• 32 minute mark we're seeing the handheld, night vision camera stuff and hearing noises. 


• 47 minutes in we have a bad fight between a couple. 


I could not spend more time on the film and I just started looking for scary, screaming parts at that point. They were hard to find and a bore when I did stumble onto one.

Then...there is the stringer plot of an interview taking place four days after "the incident" that was a strange, sad X Files play. Even worse, it made the film even more silly and explained nothing.

Poor writing and bad acting can be pulled through if you get other stuff right, but these folks didn't. They have hand held cameras in the hands of the "investigators" and security cameras stationary through the asylum, but somehow we also have footage from the "ghost eyes" of chasing folks down halls and the like that had me wondering "Who the hell is filming THAT footage?"

In short, the lover of genre ghosty films of any kind should watch this, but everyone else should avoid it and watch something else. Maybe THE WOODS or THE HAUNTING or LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE....anything else, really.  :)

Sorry, guys, I was really pulling for a sleeper hit.



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