Ever since The Blair Witch Project (’99) and its lesser-known cousin, The Last Broadcast (’98) introduced the mockumentary “found footage” formula as a horror technique, the style has become almost a staple in the genre – capturing a sense of realism and voyeuristic terror in viewers unfazed by flimsy slasher flicks and creature-features. Able to be shot on a shoe-string budget, these films literally level the playing the field and can make anyone an overnight success, depending on how many people you can scare half to death. Such is now the case with director Oren Peli, who now has willing financiers after the early returns on his debut, Paranormal Activity.

The genre has taken on new life in the past few years as zombie icon George A. Romero caught on with his recent Diary of the Dead (’07), as are the Spanish with [REC] (’07) and its English-language counterpart, Quarantine (’08). Heck, even Hollywood is dipping its toes into the water with J.J. Abrams’ comparatively big-budgeted blockbuster, Cloverfield (’08).

So, Oren Peli’s Paranormal Activity may be a copycat of sorts, coming on the heels of the recent parade of mockumentary features and now being released nearly a decade after The Blair Witch Project became a cultural phenomenon. But what it lacks in originality it makes up for in pure unadulterated fear and unrest. Already gaining underground cult status with its midnight showings and slow-burning expansion, the film has all that it takes to become the new gold standard – in this case, lightning may strike twice.

Essentially, Paranormal Activity is a demonic-haunting film centering on a young San Diego couple, Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat (both playing themselves). All that we see is through Micah’s camera, who decides that he’s going to attempt to document “strange occurrences” that the two have been witnessing in the house – more specifically, while they’re sleeping. Micah carries the camera around wherever he goes during the day, but at night, he stations it on a tripod facing the bed, giving us an eerie angle out towards the hallway, which is exposed by the open bedroom door, so eternally creepy and inviting. The fact that the camera angle during these night scenes never changes gives the film a lingering creepiness and a strategical advantage. While most horror films attempt to throw you off and then pounce like a whack-a-mole game, Paranormal Activity tells you exactly where to look and the suspense is unbearably effective.

Appropriately, most of the scares come from this angle of Katie and Micha's creepy bedroom.

For the first couple of nights, we witness a few odd happenings – items being moved from their original location, swinging doors, etc. – before the two are consented by a “psychic” who advises that emotions like fear, paranoia and anxiety are an open invitation for the ‘spirit’. I don’t want to give anything away, but as time progresses, Paranormal Activity proves mightily frightening and unsettling in the best kind of way. It occasionally slips up here and there, but it’s mostly a genuinely horrifying surveillance-style freak-out. It isn’t the best “horror” film I’ve ever seen, that regard is reserved for more artistically qualified and rendered fare, but it could very well be the “scariest” movie I’ve ever seen. If unrest and fearful anticipation were measurables in a film, this one would grade quite nicely.

Perhaps the most ingeniously conceived and fundamentally portrayed aspect of the film is the way that it preys on the vulnerability of its victims, Micah and Katie, and then by extension, the audience later that night. By creating a spiritual haunting that is almost exclusively present after our two leads are slumbering, it’s similar to the way that Alfred Hitchcock made showers a defenseless, exposed area of weakness and a prime spot for a murder and subsequent clean-up. Or more directly, the way that Wes Craven made your nightmares a reality in A Nightmare on Elm Street (’84). So how do you protect yourself when your defenses are down and you are at your most vulnerable?

As I mentioned, the film does slip up a few times when genre conventions are employed into a generally unconventional film. There is an unnecessary backstory involving Katie’s past and possible situational relation to a former haunting victim, plus the ending, which apparently took several different forms, is a bit of a letdown in its predictability.

Nevertheless, with every midnight showing and small-market expansion, the movie is converting waves of curious horror fans into believers. Whatever problems it may have as a film, the packed-house that I saw it with who didn’t emerge until the wee hours of the morning didn’t seem to notice – they were too busy wondering how they were going to get some of that deadly, vulnerable sleep.