Is this some elaborate prank?

** SPOILER WARNING ***

I think everyone is certainly entitled to their own opinion on this -- I'd just like to add my own 2 cents in comparing with the aforementioned films.

I've seen Paranormal Activity, Blair Witch Project, and Open Water. I found BW more grating than scary, although it picks up some steam towards the end. The ending was pretty scary. I only saw it twice, at home on VHS when I was 18 back in 2000 or so.

I saw Paranormal Activity in the theater and frankly found it quite laughable and ludicrous. Particularly annoying was the boyfriends obsession with filming the events happening even despite the risk to their lives and the obvious harm it was causing his girlfriend. Second only to that is the lazily orchestrated plot development of "the one person that can help you is out of town for an undisclosed amount of time, so you are better off staying put until they show up... despite the incredible danger, because this thing uhhh.. could follow you?" Yeah that sounds good enough, put that in the script. I think perhaps if I had any fear or belief in ghosts that maybe it would have scared me more. Perhaps if I'd seen it in my creaky old house instead of a state of the art cineplex, I would have been afraid. I doubt it though, they brought too much attention to what made it so hard to suspend my disbelief and in the process, yanked me right out of the movie.

Open Water on the other hand, is terrifying to me pretty much the whole way through. Once those initial two boats vanish off the horizon and all that can be seen is miles of ocean and the occasional shark fin -- a sense of dread just grows in my stomach and eats away at me for the next hour.

I left Blair Witch a little disturbed, I left Paranormal Activity wishing I had my money back, but Open Water made me feel sick as I was leaving the theater and so glad to be alive when I stepped outside into the parking lot.

In it's defense -- I think the acting is a big part of what makes it so effective. In BW and PA, you have people screaming hysterically all the time, which to me is extremely unrealistic. To me, it's used as a cue to tell the audience "this part is scary, because it's very loud, you should get scared now". Besides, anyone who has cried or screamed for a long time realizes that all that makes one very tired and worn down. In Open Water, these characters subconsciously realize they have limited resources that are not able to be replenished; there is no food and no water that is drinkable.

In real life, when people are faced with only a glimmer of hope, they latch onto it like in Open Water. When that glimmer starts to fade, they ignore it for as long as they can. They talk about other things -- anything to distract them from the elephant in the room -- and that elephant is the realization that death is staring you in the face and that there is nothing you can do about it -- there is no way to fight it because there is no enemy to fight, all you have is time, just waiting to die. I think a lot of movies would portray accepting death through teary eyed hospital bed monologues, but sometimes death doesn't strike you comfortably in bed, sometimes it gets you out in the middle of nowhere, exhausted, irritated, hungry, and hopeless.

I liked it. Actually , I saw it for the second time this morning.

"Stalingrad. . . The fall of Stalingrad was the end of Europe. There's been a cataclysm."

[deleted]

The acting was some of the worse I´ve ever seen in a movie.



If it harms none, do what thou wilt.

True-the human elements above could be read into the plot and should have been quite effective. Sadly though, compelling writing and even acceptable acting were as elusive to this film as a rescue boat.