Everything an audience member needs to know to understand Oren Peli’s Paranormal Activity is in the title. The film features newcomers Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat as a young couple figuring out how to deal with the paranormal activity going on in their house.

Paranormal is not for the faint-hearted, and even diehard fans of horror films will find themselves spooked. I have never been scared by supposedly scary movies, as their effects are obviously movie magic, but with a budget of only $15,000, Paranormal has audiences either doubting their skepticism of paranormal activity or confirming their belief in it.

The tone of the movie progresses from lighthearted and jibing to eerily convincing and chilling as the activity escalates from what could be passed off as harmless pranks to unnervingly unearthly events. At first, I also doubted if the activity was truly paranormal or just Katie’s paranoia dramatizing casual coincidences. But as the events become increasingly unbelievable, our fear grows, and we become spectators to happenings that, supernatural or not, appear all too real.

Peli’s choice to present the film as a documentary only heightens our own alarm as the movie unfolds. As Katie and Micah grow more haggard, we feel for them. Featherston and Sloat are the most real characters I have ever encountered onscreen, relatable in their normality. It is the intensifying fear in their eyes that convinces us the events we see are genuine.

It is at night, however, when we truly feel fear. Time crawls slowly as we watch, horrified, as things happen outside of their awareness and our control, and with each passing night, we find ourselves wishing for the relatively safer but still unsafe daytime.

In the end, Paranormal adeptly proves the age-old adage of Murphy’s Law: Everything bad that can happen inevitably does. All the audience can do is sit there, entirely engrossed in their turmoil.

Rating: A