Paranormal Activity 2 

I like a bit of "horror", so in the absence of anything demonstrably better, I decided to watch this at the Trafford Centre on my birthday.

I wasn't too disappointed, but I would struggle to describe this as a "film" as such - it is more in the nature of being a pseudo reality drama documentary. It has more in the line of plot and character development than the average James Bond film, but that isn't saying much. Also, to be reasonably effective, a horror film should have some sort of esoteric knowledge attached and other wordly beings (eg vampires or demons or such thing) but this had none.

What made it hang together then? Well, this is a strange film - nothing at all happens. The biggest drama is where a pan falls off its hanger in the middle of the night and makes a loud clang - wow!!! Doesn't seem much, but what it does is build up a tremendous sense of dread and stress and morbid anticipation. Something horrible is surely bound to happen to this typical everyday family of terribly smug Americans who live in a sun  drenched idyll, who don't seem to go out to work and who have a swimming pool in their back garden? It does, but rather disappointingly it happens in a written footnote at the end of the film.

To sum up - really, I wouldn't bother. It does indeed work up a palpable sense of fear and stress, but I can get that for free by attending my regular place of employment. And no - I didn't see "Paranormal Activity 1" but I don't reckon I missed anything because from what I hear, "2" is just a slightly more expensive, glitzy and better filmed version of "1".