Paranormal Incident (2011)
Directed by: Matthew Bolton
Written by: Chris W. Freeman, Matthew Bolton
Starring: Amanda Barton, Keith Compton, Oliver Rayon, Thomas Downey
Paranormal Incident (2011)
Directed by Matthew Bolton
On the first night, John (Oliver Rayon) has to leave but promises to return the following day. In his absence, the group witness strange apparitions, doors slamming shut, movement in the night and strange sounds from the EVP recordings. It isn’t too long before their project becomes a living nightmare as they find themselves locked in and hunted by mysterious forces.
The Paranormal Incident is an interestingly contstructed film, blending found footage, ‘CCTV footage’ and traditional film together in order to tell the story. The film starts with John lying injured in a hospital bed, unaware on how he got there and unable to remember the events of the previous day. A police officer, played by Amanda Barton, is quizzing him on the events at the Sanitorium, convinced that he is to blame for the disappearance of his friends. The shots of John being interviewed are the only parts filmed in the traditional way but it suffers with awful performances from both Rayon and Barton, who are times cheesey and cringeworthy. Surprisingly, the found footage segment of the film is much more believable with the cast giving a convincing performance, if not a little predictable at times. John is shown the ‘found footage’ in his hospital room by the female officer, who quizzes him about his actions inbetween pressing the remote control’s play button in order to show both John and the viewer the events on that fateful weekend in the abandoned Odenbrook.
The other characters joining John at the Odenbrook are self-confessed nerd and object of John’s affection ‘Tess’, skeptics Sam and Danny and jock Brennan who brings his latest squeeze Blake with him to the Sanitorium. Despite being skeptics, Sam, Danny and Brendan each get scared witless by bumps and noises in the dark, with none of them attempting to explain and denounce the paranormal. Instead they feel threatened by it in the moment and then instantly forget afterwards, keen to go back into the field and find more spooky goings on, despite turning into blithering idiots when faced with supernatural occurrances. The group take much of the incidents in their stride, that is until they find that John has locked them in which causes panic between the group. Whilst the team are likable enough, not much time is given to their different personalities, with each student experiencing and reacting in the same way to the spooky goings on. I was pleading for one of the so-called skeptics to stand up and refuse to believe or feel threatened by the incidents. This lack of distinct personality or opinion kept the film very much 1 dimensional. Similarly, the frightening experiences aren’t really that scary, with the camera person shaking with fright so much that it distorts the entire scene, resulting in a destruction of what little tension there was. This is disappointing as Paranormal Incident has the potential to be scarier much like Session 9 was.
Paranormal Incident results in a confused, disappointing ‘shock’ ending which doesn’t cause the reaction it hopes to. Whilst it’s by no means the worst movie in the world, it’s a missed opportunity that had the potential to be more.
Rating: 
I reckon movies like this do themselves a disservice by riding of the coat-tails of paranormal activity