The best horror taps into our deepest fears: Rosemary’s Baby and the occult, The Exorcist and demonic possession, The Entity and invasion of our personal space. Micah (Micah Sloat) and Katie (Katie Featherston) fall under the third category. Something is inside their home, and it won’t leave. Micah uses some of his money from day trading to buy a camera and record what happens while they sleep. I think you can figure out the rest. What you probably won’t expect, in this age of topless teens and screaming sorority girls, is to actually care about Micah and Katie. We spend the first half hour just getting to know them and seeing how their marriage works. We know it won’t last, but we wish it could. They seem so happy. They seem like us. And if it can happen to them…

Doors mysteriously open and shut, terrible things take place in time-lapse photography, and baby powder takes on a whole new meaning. You might think this is the demon’s fault, but it’s not. It’s Micah’s, or Asshole With A Camera, as I like to call him. See, Paranormal Activity is as much a film about the dissolution of a marriage as it is about a haunting. The real intruder isn’t a ghost, but the camera that Micah gives an all-access pass to their lives. Katie ducks and screams at the lens as much as she screams at her tormentor. She begs Micah to stop, but he doesn’t, no matter how upset she becomes. A real person would have compassion in this case. A real person Micah is not.

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