Review: PARANORMAL ACTIVITY at American Conservatory Theatre

The Paranormal Activity franchise (seven films from 2007 -21), while critically panned, proved people love to be scared, then laugh at their foolishness. Now a theatre piece, the crowd anticipated the expected thrills of supernatural goings on in a live experience. And the hype about this show was tremendous, the LA Times calling it “the best staged production of the year,” another saying, “the level of theatrical skill you are about to witness is staggering.” Nope. Not even close.

With a lousy book and labored direction, Paranormal Activity tries to muster suspense, but the buildup to the scary payoffs takes forever and never really hits the mark. A newlywed couple move to London to escape some bad stuff that happened to Lou, the wife, who’s now of heavy meds after ‘losing time’ and experiencing dread. When the new home start to shudder, creak and bang, Jim thinks his wife’s crazy till he gets involved in the mishegoss. A medium is called in, she conjures up the spirit of Lou’s dead mother, freaks out, and runs away. There’s an appearance by something imitating Jim’s bible-thumping mother, and plenty of power outages and creaky doors.

Everything is explained in the last few moments when we find out the couple are very bad people who deserve just what they get, proving what the point that “places aren’t haunted, people are” – the best line in Levi Holloway’s script. If you’re afraid of the dark and love a jump scare triggering a fight-or-flight adrenaline response, you’ll love this production.

.Paranormal Activity runs through March 22nd. Tickets can be purchased at http://www.act-sf.org/