Paranormal Activity: Encouraging?

            The big story in movies of the last few weeks and perhaps year so far is Paranormal Activity.  You know all about it, but to review, it’s this small movie from 2006 from first time filmmakers done on close to zero budget.  It takes a nod from The Blair Witch Project by going with the first person POV camera and pretending like it’s all real.  This time around they didn’t really try to convince us that this was legit, and instead just sold the idea of the truly indie underdog combined with a legitimately scary movie.

            There are probably 50 Paranormal Activity’s made a year.  I saw a few of them, one shitty one coming to mind being The Ceremony, which I saw at SXSW because I was in the mood for some delicious Alamo Drafthouse popcorn and a Guinness milkshake (wow, do I miss that place.  I really want a shake right now), and one decent, if not modestly funded Grace, directed by Emerson grad Paul Solet, which I saw at Sundance but was also at SXSW.  Grace got a release from Anchor Bay, and The Ceremony is probably on Youtube in 10-minute sequences.  Neither got any attention, even while Grace was infinitely better than Paranormal.