Movie Review: Paranormal Entity

Runtime: 88 minutes
Rating: NR
Release Date: December 22, 2009
Director: Shane Van Dyke

Paranormal Entity opens with a warning, letting the viewers know that a young man named Thomas raped and murdered his sister and another woman before jumping into the film.

Ellen (Fia Perera) lives in her home with her daughter Samantha (Erin Marie Hogan) and her son Thomas (Shane Van Dyke). The family lost their husband/father the year before, and Ellen started talking to him after his death. After a chance encounter at a “weird store,” a woman tells her that she can contact the dead by writing letters. Ellen begins writing letters to her dead husband, which leads to a haunting in the house.

Thomas starts recording the family early on, hoping to capture evidence of the haunting. As the film progresses, Thomas starts capturing some odd footage of his mother seemingly contacting something from beyond. Once the ghost starts attacking Samantha, the family realizes that the creature haunting them is not their dead father.

Paranormal Entity is one of those films that I passed dozens of times at the video store (yes, we still have one or two of those left in these parts). When I saw it pop up on Netflix, I added it to my queue, thinking that it was one of those movies I would never get around to watching. Then, I bought a random set of horror films from Walmart and decided to watch all of those movies in a row, which included this one. Is it wrong that I want my 50 cents back?

This film calls itself an homage to Paranormal Activity, but it’s just a pure rip-off. When Thomas decides to investigate things in the attic, I kept waiting for him to come across burned/destroyed photographs. Despite that, it does have one or two good moments.

One of the best scenes comes when Ellen wanders downstairs in the middle of the night, sits down at the coffee table, and starts writing. The vacant look on her face and the dark lighting definitely ups the creepy factor. Unfortunately, most of the movie feels like something I’ve already seen before.