The evil of banality

Paranormal Activity

Crit

Geez, this sure puts the occasional rat incursion in perspective.

Went to see what all the fuss is about, and I'm damned if I know. I guess I'd have to acknowledge that it's a well-crafted creeper: once the camera-running-overnight-in-bedroom trope is established, we can't help but study the frame--the doorway to the hall and stairs down, the bedsheets--to see what the next goof is going to be, but with the exception of a couple of good funhouse shocks and two genuinely chilling moments, a goof is mostly what it is, and a clichéd one. And matters aren't helped by the thoroughgoing blandness of the female half of the couple, and the nails-on-chalkboard annoyingness of the male. After a while you're not only down with the inevitability of their destruction by the demon, you can't wait.

Oh, one original bit, at least in my experience: the haunting is not of the house but of the person, so wherever she goes, her demon is Mary's-little-lambish. Only a lot more aggressive.

Trailers

• Daybreakers--A world where vampires are in the overwhelming majority, and they're still working on that "true blood" product.