hauntings and demons and crawlers, oh my!

last weekend, my friend jenn and i bought a bunch of wine, salami, and cheese, and settled in for a night of scary movies while our boyfriends attended a zombie run somewhere in the middle of the woods in maryland.

i like scary movies, but i don't tend to watch them a lot... usually because it's pretty hard to find someone else to watch them WITH. and while i may enjoy them, i'm CLEARLY not going to watch them ALONE BY MYSELF in an empty house, because hahahahahaha no.

so when i do see scary movies, it tends to be in one of these marathon sessions. which is maaaaayyybe not the best idea if i want to sleep at all that week.

anyway, our screenings for the night: Paranormal Activity 3 in theaters, followed by The Descent, and Paranormal Activity 2, since i hadn't actually seen that one yet.

The Descent came highly recommended - both by friends and by rottentomatoes.com - but... eh. i'm clearly in the minority here, since it has a whopping 84% (!) on Rotten Tomatoes, but while it definitely had me jumping while i was watching it, i didn't really find it that compelling. don't get me wrong, it's not like i'm volunteering to go spelunking in that particular cave any time soon, but i'm also not haunted by the movie. like, thinking back to it doesn't make me uneasy, or shivery, or worried about being in caves. we also felt that there was a concerted effort to ensure that the all-female cast didn't veer into chick flick territory, but in doing so the director may have glossed a little TOO quickly over the character development for the main characters. we had no earthly idea who two of the women even were or how they ended up with the group, and found ourselves not really caring if various characters died as a result.

however, if you have a thing with claustrophobia and/or caves in general? i can imagine this movie would be scary as SHIT.

but dude, the Paranormal Activity movies..... i am STILL kind of messed up from those. seeing 3 before 2 was totally fine, since each movie so far has gone further back in the characters' timelines - so 3 happens long before 2, for example. (however: still see #1 first.)

Paranormal 3 apparently hasn't been getting outstanding reviews, but OH MY GOD it was pretty great. if by "great" you mean "i have had trouble getting to sleep every night this week because i can't stop reimagining scenes from it OH MY GOD IS SOMETHING IN MY BED?! *hyperventilate*"

the camera angle set up for this one is pretty genius - both jenn and i initially thought having a camera pan between rooms was going to be irritating, but quickly realized how much extra tension it brought. plus, kids + supernatural is ALWAYS freaky as crap. i'd heard the last 15 minutes of the movie "will mess you up for life," and while i didn't think that was QUITE the case for me, it does provide some significant long-term "holy shit that is messed UP" stuff to think about.

so basically, if you like freaky paranormal stuff? it's a good choice. also good if you don't want to fall asleep for a few days, for some reason.