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Earlier this week Dominic took me to see the film, Paranormal Activity. I may have mentioned this before, but I must emphasize that I really don’t like going to the theater to see first-run films. I’ll check out movies relevant to my interests in independent art theaters because they usually can’t fill half the house. If I’m in town, I’ll go see weird stuff with my friends at the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin because they serve pizza and beer, and they’ll take your ass out for talking. Mostly though, I recognize that any first-run film that I want to see is a movie, meaning when I watch it has almost no impact on my life at all. It will come out on DVD in a matter of months, and I will be able to enjoy it at my leisure for much less than $10 per movie ticket.

That said, I went to the damn movie. I like horror movies and it was Monday. Why the hell not?

The theater was packed, but not ridiculously so. Unfortunately, that was the best thing I can say about this film. The first hour and change portray a young 20-something couple bickering about a bunch of stupid shit. I saw that the couple in front of us had a big pizza. That looked good. There was another couple a few rows back eating popcorn. There are almost 50 grams of fat in a small bucket of popcorn. Good thing they’re sharing. Hey, it smells like jalepenos in here…

Is that couple on the screen still fighting? Yeah? Okay. Maybe if he’s going to act like such a pompous douche and she’s pissy because she’s all cursed and shit, it might be time to part ways.

They had a really nice house, though: wood floors, two guest rooms, and that kitchen… Wow!

“BO-ring,” I said.

“BORING!” Dominic replied.

“I’m not feeling any romance in this movie right now.”

And so it went. We sat in the dark theater and watched a next-generation Blair Witch Project while I silently wished it were months later. Then, I would be watching this movie at home with a bottle of Knob, wearing boxer shorts and shouting things at the TV. Damn theater etiquette for censoring my loud, witty brilliance!

The last 10 minutes of this movie were good. Sort of. I mean, there were a few things that could make you jump, but they didn’t compensate for the long, dull rising action preceding it. Dominic was freaked out. I was at a loss… of about two hours of my life.

This movie got great reviews, so for people who tend to agree with those, this could be fun. It is different from the typical horror movie format, but in my opinion, that doesn’t work in its favor.