It was with a sense of curiosity, anticipation and, yes, even dread that I entered the movie theatre to see Paranormal Activity, another one of those movies that showed size does matter, just sometimes in reverse. A lot of conversation’s been had about this film. Written off by the establishment, puttering between studio offices for years, gets a one off screening and bam, suddenly the Powers That Be remembered that sometimes a scary movie can, you know, actually be scary. But more importantly, it can be scary on a so-small-it’s-microscopic budget. I guess it’s a lesson the Hollywood power players must learn once every 10 years or so (see: The Blair Witch Project released exactly 10 years ago this past summer).

So what’s the best way to measure a movie’s effectiveness? That’s easy, listen to the other patrons talk on the way out of the theatre. The flow out of this screening of Paranormal seemed unanimous positive. Was it a bit on the silly side at times? You bet it did, but that didn’t diminish the overall effectiveness of the scares, or better still, the sense of anticipation for those scares. You didn’t see what ended up coming, coming. It could have been something slightly creepy to something made you want to spontaneously fly under your seat cushion, and the audience liked that. There’s no better badge of honour for a film, to me at least, than to leave people talking at the end of it. On this merit alone, Paranormal Activity is a resounding success.

So now I wonder how to talk about it without spoilers. Well, first of all, stay till the end. And I can’t stress that enough because if there’s nothing in the first 80 some-odd minutes to make your heart race, I guarantee that the final scene will be like a Vincent Vega administered shot of adrenaline. Don’t believe me? When is that last time you heard actual screams in the movie theatre. I don’t mean a girlish “ew,” or a Keanu-ish “whoa,” but a full-fledge blood curdling scream? Exactly. What we have here in filmmaker Oren Peli is a man that knows how to build tension. In fact that great, final scare is almost a relief because you’ve been on pins and needles waiting for something that bad to go down the whole time.

But if there’s a flaw to be had in Paranormal Activity, it’s the occasional banalities of the domestic drama between our two hauntees Micah (Micah Sloat) and Katie (Katie Featherston). She’s fine actually. I found Featherston both raw and real as the main focus of the ghostly bad vibrations. But if Featherston is in a movie where she’s playing to some kind of emotional realism, Sloat finds himself cast in the dumb husband role from so many classic sitcoms. Veering wildly between Larry Vaughn-style, borderline masochistic denial to Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor brand of self-actualizing delusion, Micah comes so close to grating that you’re on the edge of your seating, waiting for the ghost to finish him off for all the wrong reasons.

But maybe seeing Micah bungle one attempt to rid the house of/communicate with the ghost, in full Mr. Chicken glory, is part of the movie’s hidden charm. As much as you find yourself gripping the arms of chair wondering what the malevolent spirit will cook up next, you get a good laugh out of Micah defying Katie and “borrowing” a Ouija board after being advised by a psychic not to. And there’s something wonderfully absurdist when the psychic returns later when things are really bad and splits because he can feel that the spirits are really upset that he’s there. Guy probably set a record for the three minute mile splitting from that house, if he was real psychic in a real life threatening situation that is.

Like The Blair Witch, Paranormal’s got that “based on actual footage” authentically fake stamp on it. It’s one of those necessary evils, I guess, to maintain the disbelief factor and help viewers accept the low-browness of the finished product. Sometimes things in Paranormal, the non-scary parts, are somehow both too ludicrous to be real and somehow just right. But it’s when the lights go off that the film shows its secret weapon. The effects are low key enough to be believable and still kind of sophisticated enough to make you ask how they did it. Paranormal Activity is a serious effort, and a serious film. A true indie success story that should keep people frightened at least through Halloween.