As with The Blair Witch Project, you soon want something truly painful to happen to the main protagonists here, the incredibly annoying Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat supposedly playing themselves, and seemingly improvising their way through this, at heart, no-budget, schlock-horror two-hander. The latter proves unaware until it's too late that he's actually dating Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased), Katie having been the target of a poltergeist ever since she was a small girl. A poltergeist who's happy to follow her wherever she moves.
For his part, techno-geek Micah just wants to catch something on film, the night vision footage of those few minutes when Casper's evil twin does eventually start popping by for a latenight bedroom visit providing the sort of old-fashioned scares William Castle would normally have a hand in.
THE VERDICT: Unashamedly taking the winning formula of The Blair Witch Project – amateur actors videotaping themselves as more and more things go bump in the night – this American box-office success story arrives on our screens more than a little out of time (it was released at Halloween in the US). And certainly, in the cold light of Christmas, it doesn't quite convince.
It's really all Scooby-Doo nonsense, Paranormal Activity offering up nothing new, or, more importantly, particularly scary. If this was a play, I have little doubt that the audience would soon rise up as one and help that poltergeist.
RATING: 2/5
Words - Paul Byrne