Paranormal Entity review (DVD) ★

Well, it certainly didn't take long for The Asylum to churn out yet another rip-off of a film distributed by a Hollywood company. For those who do not know, The Asylum produce a huge number of films per year for a company of its size, 95 percent of which are blatant and shameless rip-offs of surefire Hollywood blockbusters. Surefire because they release their products just before the big movies drop into cinemas or DVD, to basically fool the consumer into thinking that the film they are buying is not some low-budget, poorly made and badly acted flick, but the actual Hollywood hit. Why is it so easy to fool the consumer and underhandedly capitalise on the success of reputable film-makers? The titles. Yes, The Asylum enjoys putting out their cheap clones with all too similar titles. Paranormal Entity, as I'm sure you have guessed, is a play on Oren Peli's independent sensation Paranormal Activity from last year. Let's play match-up and see if you can guess the Hollywood blockbusters that The Asylum have produced a “mockbuster” of from the following titles (I won't even bother putting down the answers, it's far too obvious!): Transmorphers, The Terminators, Snakes on a Train, Death Racers, The Hitchhiker.

Paranormal Activity was an exciting and highly commendable effort from writer-director Oren Peli and the three actors who performed in his film. Made for just $15,000 at Peli's house in 2007, the film went on to make $100 million in the States two years later when distributed by Paramount Pictures. So, The Asylum, seeing this success, quickly created a 90-minute improvised film probably shot in a weekend. If that. It was put out to coincide with the home entertainment release of Paranormal Activity, and can you imagine how many people are going to be fooled by it? Only one word is different and the box art is almost identical. Oh, and there's that thing called plot. Yes, that's exactly the same, too.

Paranormal Entity, just like Activity, revolves around the occupants of a house that harbours some pretty spooky goings on. Only unlike Activity, they aren't very spooky at all. Also unlike its unprecedentedly superior counterpart, those living in the haunted house are a brother and sister, with their mother, rather than a young couple. The brother decides to begin videotaping throughout the day and night after his sister experiences various paranormal phenomena, and that's pretty much it. It's shot cinema verite, or “Blair Witch style” as a lot of people like to say, despite the fact that The Blair Witch Project was probably the 800,000th film to be shot that way, and was heavily influenced by Ruggero Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust mockumentary. Oh, and another thing — I bloody hate Blair Witch!

The film is presented as genuine footage found in the house after the brother was accused of murdering his sister, and the public showing of the video is to help shed light on the brother's words that something not of this world is what killed his sister. Of course, none of this is actually true, it's just a movie!

Paranormal Entity is a carbon copy, even down to the specifics of the supernaturality, like mysterious footsteps, doors slamming, and the bringing of a parapsychologist into the house. Why anyone would buy this over Paranormal Activity is honestly beyond me. Entity is an even cheaper film and it pales so much in comparison that this review was hardly worth writing, however I'll be very happy if I have persuaded readers to never step foot near a copy of this film, and instead purchase the genuine article.

EXTRAS None.