By Simon Thompson
Writer/director Raymond Wallace’s Paranormal Investigations is a slightly below average found footage horror movie, featuring a cast of characters who are about as fleshed out as Guess Who cards. While technically proficient, that isn’t enough to overcome its other flaws as it trundles along to the ending.
Paranormal Investigations follows a bickering film crew of a MythBusters style tv show exploring a house in North Carolina that is said to be haunted. Once the crew gets situated inside the place, chaos inevitably ensues, with the evil inside being awakened and beginning to stalk the film crew.
Shot on location in both Virginia and North Carolina, the movie’s overcast exterior areas and the creaky southern gothic interior of the house give the visuals a quality that resembles the first Black Sabbath album cover come to life. The deteriorated house is an environment brimming with personality, and does a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to creating atmosphere.
What lets this movie down completely is that, in spite of its location and aesthetically pleasing rural cinematography, the characters themselves are lacklustre. This is because all of them conform to a specific archetype; e.g. the nerd who likes computers and technology because he’s a nerd, or the Jud Crandallesque old man who warns people about the house, or the smarmy show host, and the perpetually fed up crew leader who’s sick of everyone else’s antics. None of these characters have any personality beyond a few short sentences and as a result it is very difficult to care properly when anything happens to them.
The plot and pacing are both sluggishly predictable. As soon as the film crew reaches the haunted house you know exactly what is going to happen to them and how, completely removing any tension and jeopardy whatsoever from the proceeding events. Instead of being on the edge of your seat, the viewing experience is akin to starting a stop watch and timing when the next horror cliché while happen.
Overall, in the crowded deluge of found footage horror movies Paranormal Investigations offers very little that allows it to stand out from the rest. Your time can be far better spent via ordering a pizza and cracking on the original Blair Witch Project instead, a piece of work which has been oft imitated but never equalled.
Bloody Flicks 