“I couldn’t use the bathroom with the door closed for a week after watching it.”

“I needed a night light in my room.”

“I stopped watching it halfway, and I still can’t sleep with my door open anymore.”

These are all actual testimonials from some people I know after they watched Paranormal Activity. Well, I finally summoned the courage to see what the hype was. I wanted to be traumatized for life. Instead, I got one man’s idiotic journey to provoke the supernatural, and the world’s most pansy demon.

Remember the horrific demon in The Exorcist? Well, the demon in Paranormal Activity doesn’t. This demon is content with moving open doors a few inches, lighting Ouija boards on fire when no one’s around, and possessing people to stand alongside their bed for hours at a time. Yawn.

It’s too bad the demon failed at demon school so completely, because you’re actually rooting for the thing to terrorize this couple. The characters in this film, especially the camera-toting Micah, put into motion a string of events so dumb that it’s hard to root for their survival.

Micah spends the entire film verbally antagonizing the obviously real demon. Great idea.

His girlfriend repeatedly tells him that the more they try to film and understand it, the angrier the Nancy-demon gets. And yet at no point does Micah really take this seriously, despite irrefutable evidence that this is the case. When an invisible being yanks your girlfriend out of bed and down the hall, it’s time to turn off the camera.

And even after an apparition with three toes leaves footprints in their bedroom, they refuse to leave their home. Allegedly, it wouldn’t have made a difference, but you can’t tell me a normal, rational couple wouldn’t give it a try if they know without a doubt a god damn demon is couch surfing in their attic.

Instead, all they do is bicker the entire time while the demon ruins their lives by…flashing lights on and off. Paranormal Activity? More like A Demon’s Guide to Ending a Relationship.

I understand that PA is a more subtle attempt at horror, but the demon’s hijinks are so pedestrian that it’s hard to generate any real fear, especially since we the audience know the movie is fake, despite the intentionally amateur filming techniques. I went in expecting a lot from Paranormal Activity. I was not impressed.