Paranormal Activity

Part of the tension of Paranormal Activity comes from the clashes between Micah and Katie. Why do characters in haunted house stories turn on each other? Conflict moves the story. Giving characters opposing theories about how to endure the haunting makes for a fun book or film. Micah makes a crack about Katie's mother-in-law coming over, but the demon in this house knows even better how to drive a couple apart. Two against one is fun, but three against three is more fun. Divided, we fall.

Micah's camera, the borrowed Ouija board, some baby powder, and a couple of books are his tools in the role he has set for himself as a researcher. However, his smug taunting of the demon and condescension toward Katie betray this as a conceit. As a paranormal researcher, he is a flyweight. He doesn't want to understand the demon so much as he wants to draw it out into the open to assert dominance over it. He wants a fight and underestimates the strength of his adversary.

Katie wants none of this and prefers to lay low. It's not a matter of denial--she doesn’t hide her head under the sand. But she keeps it down, believing that if she stays quiet, the disturbances will remain at the level of annoying and not ratchet up to deadly.

Early in the film, the couple’s adversarial stance is playful and flirtatious. Micah lies to Katie that he has turned off the camera while they begin to kiss on the bed, and she admonishes him. But she is gentle about it.

The psychic's visit was Katie's idea. His advice supports her opinion about the importance of not antagonizing the demon. He is stern with Micah when he practically orders him not to use an Ouija board. This scene is a turning point for the couple, and open antagonism flares. Micah wants to be the one who knows all about the demon. He has read books, right? But his methods are ineffectual--kicking the door, yelling. He needles Katie for neglecting to tell him she was haunted by a demon, even after their fifteenth date.

Katie digs her heels in, too. She complains to Micah to stop filming. But her rigidity is evident in her refusal to explore possible reasons for the history of the demonic activity. Micah gets transactional and uses the fact that she never told him about the haunting as justification for his having a say in what they do. He grows more controlling, while Katie lashes back passively, alternating between dissolving into tears or bitchiness.

Things get worse. But after Micah finds Katie outside on the backyard swing, he expresses his fear by becoming angry. When they re-watch the tape of her standing over the bed for hours, he calls her a "weirdo." The fact that she doesn't remember any of it makes him furious. This interplay reminded me of Hill House when the characters began to hide their fear from each other, and Nell and Theo's relationship collapsed.

Katie finds herself stuck in the middle between two jealous alpha males. One drags her down the hallway like a caveman. The other tells her, "you're too cute to be talking."

This three-way conflict increases the tension in Paranormal Activity. It is necessary because the demon is unseen and inarticulate. The conflict between it and the couple is fundamental--we know that it is trying to kill them. The complexity and tension would lessen if Micah and Katie were on the same page, and the story was "us against It."

The couple never takes effective action against the demon, instead spending their last days at odds with each other. They stay home because the psychic tells them it would do no good to leave. (One wonders if they would have been safer in a Starbucks or an all-night diner.) As their stamina drains away, they come together at last. Micah drops the toxic male stance to comfort Katie. But it is too late, and they lay themselves down in surrender. The ending of the film is tragic because their skirmishes prevented them from doing more.