I had my bets on liking the film … I did not expect it to be one of the scariest movies I’ve ever seen.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Dec 4, 2024

The cast is solid, the directing is great, the set-up works, the scares are built up just right.

| Dec 14, 2023

Its strengths come in its subtlety, it's a roller-coaster ride that audiences buy into knowing full well that the narrative will take a backseat to being frightened with effective jump-scares.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 22, 2023

Like a rollercoaster, it’s a temporary buzz that fades as soon as the ride is over.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Aug 30, 2023

More a fantastic advertisement for the perils of multi-storey living, than a be-respectful-of-ghosts allegory, Paranormal is still not for the faint of heart, but it has definitely lost a lot of its lustre.

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 31, 2023

Even when you know they're coming, the scares still send a chill down your spine.

| Sep 20, 2021

it was awesome in the way that it was extremely, horrendously and torturously stressful... worth it.

| Sep 1, 2021

Enter the cinema expecting a clever little movie, with some neat ideas and pretty decent performances and, if you let it, Paranormal Activity will give you a pretty uncomfortable nights sleep.

| Apr 23, 2021

It's one thing to create a movie that functions as good narrative storytelling, but it's another to create that movie knowing exactly how an audience is going to react to stimuli.

| Dec 12, 2019

Intense, disturbing and with an ending that will leave even the most resolute disbeliever sleeping with the light on, it's as much an experience as it is a piece of entertainment.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Oct 29, 2019

The movie gets enormous mileage out of small, barely noticeable details-a door opening by itself, covers stirred by a breeze from nowhere, a chandelier swinging.

| Sep 18, 2019

Its scares are undeniably effective, but the overall product lacks a real hook to pull in the audience.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 6, 2019

[Paranormal Activity] is way more scary than Blair Witch because it takes the old conceit of things that go bump into the night, and brings it slyly into a well-to-do, middle class suburb.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 17, 2019

Paranormal Activity has some big flaws, but I find big flaws fairly forgivable in $10,000 films made by amateurs.

| Oct 30, 2018

Truly a genre re-defining moment, the found-footage phenomenon Paranormal Activity is dollar-for-dollar one of the most financially successful movies ever made.

| Oct 26, 2018

The "found-footage" format and the slowly ratcheting up of the haunting only added to the terror.

| Oct 26, 2018

This is a scarily well-made scary little film, although it certainly isn't flawless... But the acting is supremely naturalistic and, for such a small-scale project, it does have an amazingly heightened effect.

| Aug 30, 2018

The terror was raw and real - all the more so because it was so understated.

| May 23, 2018

Despite the scares, the film soon becomes repetitive... simply not enough happens. That's a shame, because Paranormal Activity is at times extremely innovative.

| May 14, 2018

A movie that makes you feel this vulnerable comes along once in a long while.

| Jan 23, 2018