So I finally made the long trek–”a theater near you” is really a relative term–to catch Paranormal Activity in theaters, and I’ll tell you this–this is the first time I’ve been scared by a movie in a long time.

Paranormal Activity is the story of a young couple, living together, who finds themselves beset upon by demons.  Apparently these demons have been following around the distaff half of the couple since she was a little girl, but only now does she feel the need to actually, you know, do anything about it.  And what ends up happening over the course of about three weeks will amaze you, as you watch it unfold thanks to the male half’s camera array.

Paranormal Activity isn’t scary because of its plot–frankly, it doesn’t even have that much of a plot.  And what plot there is is so laden with cliches it’s almost meaningless.  It’s as though it was written by particularly talented fourteen year olds. Seriously–cliche city in here.  One of them actually brings in a Ouija board.  The WHOLE THEATER groaned at that.  We all know better.  Ouija boards are like the only thing horror movies, pagans, Christians, and the paranormal research community all agree on, and they all agree that using one of these things is the DUMBEST IDEA EVER.

But where Paranormal Activity absolutely SHINES is in its incredible capacity for building tension.  Paranormal Activity will make you CRINGE.  They have this incredible way of locking you into something seemingly innocuous–probably thanks to that elapsed-time counter at the lower-right hand corner of the screen when we’re watching “playback” footage.

When you stare at a scene for even just half a minute, you’re waiting.  You know, you KNOW, something is going to happen in front of you, but you have no way of knowing what that something is.  So you’re staring, you’re staring, you’re beginning to wonder if maybe nothing’s going to ha–BAM!  Suddenly all hell breaks loose and there’s banging around and things going nuts and doors slamming and footprints and weird shapes and everything’s just gone all insane!

See what I mean?

That’s TENSION, ladies and gentlemen.  And it will get your heart pounding and your pulse racing like no installment of Saw EVER did.  We’ve forgotten about the simple power of tension in an arms-race-esque rush to make the best special effects and blood packets.

And I’ll tell you this–the ending is going to kill you.  It got me pretty good and I’ve been watching horror for, nearly, two decades now.

The Screenhead Ten Scale, as a lesson to others, hands Paranormal Activity a nine out of ten for showing us, once again, what something as simple as a tension filled moment can do.