Paranormal Activity (2009)

Halloween weekend and what better way to spend it than by watching a horror movie! “Paranormal Activity” was referred by a friend of mine saying that it was really awesome. The press had been pretty generous about the movie too and this week the movie prevented “Saw VI” from getting its traditional No.1 spot. In short, expectations were sky-high when I begin watching it. My expectations had been similar when I was referred by roommate to watch “The Ring” but the results had turned out to be less than flattering!! Did the same happen with this movie? Well, almost!
The movie centers around Katie and Micah (their real name too!) who are a couple living in a haunted house. Not haunted exactly as Katie has been witnessing paranormal activities since she was aged 8 and even before she came to the house. Micah meanwhile wants to document these activities so that he can believe them. So he buys a camera and decides to follow their day to day activity and keeps it turned on during the night so that he can get a visual documentation of Katie’s experiences. What follows is a series of nights through the camera’s vision and what it captures.
I have never been genuinely scared by any horror movie and much of the scare that I have experienced have been incidental due to some sudden noise or nifty camera work. Even with that yardstick, the movie didn’t actually scare me. In fact, the first paranormal activity that you see comes only around 24^th minute into the movie and is more comical than actually scary. What worked for me were the two main protagonists. While Micah remains a persistent non-believer and always eager to find out more about these activities, Katie portrays the helpless victim well. They don’t act like silly horror movie characters that are more pain to watch than the ghost or the demons themselves. That brings me to the origin of the paranormal activities- a demon! Unfortunately, save for a brief history we don’t actually get to know him very well so that brings the scare-factor down several notches. And the ending is so expectedly loud, gory and lame that you wish you had skipped it.
All in all, the movie was a notch better than “The Ring” so go ahead if it scared you, but I won’t recommend anyone to watch it otherwise.
RATING: **1/2 (out of 5)

SURROGATES (2009)

Imagine that you are watching any of the Terminator movies and then suddenly you realize that the menacing robots are actually humans! “Surrogates” has a plot that actually looks something like that. The end result though is nor humorous nor exciting but somewhere in between.
The movie begins by tracing the evolution of the “Surrogates” across the ages. They are robotic forms controlled by humans in the real world, while they stay in the safe environs of their home. Something like Neo hooking onto and entering the matrix!! But the difference here is that while the Surrogates can be destroyed, their human controllers remain unharmed. The entire world uses them to carry out their daily work. But there also exist a group of humans led by the Prophet (a barely noticeable Ving Rhames), who resist the use of surrogates and they live in machine free zones resisting their use. This system has led to an almost non-existent crime rates and general peace in the world.
But things are about to change when a gruesome murder takes place of a Surrogate who happens to be the son of the discoverer of Surrogacy. The incident not only destroys the Surrogate but also happens to kill its controller by frying the controller’s brain!! In comes investigators Tom Greer (Bruce Willis) and Peters (Radha Mitchell). They soon realize that a human has the possession of a weapon that can kill both the Surrogates and its owner. The clue to the murder lies on who made the weapon and for what purpose.
While the plot may look a wee bit interesting but the movie hardly is. In fact, it is difficult to tell what the movie is aiming to be: a thriller, a mystery, an action or a full blown science-fiction. The sub-plot of death of Greer’s son and his relationship with his wife (Rosamund Pike) is hardly explored. Bruce Willis almost sleepwalks through his role while Radha Mitchell has little scope to display her acting prowess. Rosamund Pike is as unemotional as all the Surrogates in the movie (it might be intentional but comes naturally to her!!). Some of the action is pretty well shot but why were the Surrogates jumping and flying in the air like G.I.Joe’s??
All in all, Surrogates ends up as the movie that you can only watch when you have nothing else to do and you are as bored as me!!
RATING: ** (out of 5)