A quick review. At last a horror film that doesn't dish the monster/gore money shot in the first half hour. As an aside, I can see a shift in pop culture away from torture porn (the recent abiding form of horror being Guantanamo Bay). These days vampires seem to be on the rise (True Blood, Daybreakers, New Moon etc). They have a number of simple associations: aristocracy, parasitism, simultaneous attraction and repulsion, syphilis (bite marks on the neck being the visual metaphor for pock marks)... If this is the case we need to chew over what this means more broadly.
Paranormal Activity is actually closer to a thriller. Not perfect in its writing (the demon's motivation, like the demon itself, is not really fleshed out; although it is suggested we don't get to see why his activity spirals), the performances and particularly the framing of the story as found footage are very effective. If you like turn of the screw fear you will enjoy Paranormal Activity.
One other thing. The haunting is done by a demon, not a ghost, hence, for one thing, the haunting follows the female lead about. It's a different and interesting angle. Belief in ghosts is a product of human alienation. Demons are first known to appear in the works of Plato (which doesn't mean he invented the concept). At the time they were simply regarded as spirits, not neccesarily good or bad.
Demons feature in most religions and are generally regarded as evil. They have a variety of resonances. A common overlap is they tend to either target individiuals and torment or engulf their victims. While demons are not portrayed as human, i.e. ghosts, they certainly another variation on alienated humanity, this time with the emphasis on human will and desire being posessed by a natural or even higher power.
Capitalists are often portrayed as vampires. Could the symptoms of their system (inflicted on their working subjects) be protrayed as demons?
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