Paranormal Activity – Paul Trashes Drew’s Review

I went to see Paranormal Activity 4 today. Seeing a scary movie around Halloween is a tradition of mine and my wife's, and seeing this film franchise is starting to become a major part of that tradition. We love the formula, the simplicity, the scary children. This film was great, but this review is not so much about the actual film as it is about my colleague Drew's (you hear him in the afternoon) whining about the product placement in his review of the movie.

First, let me just say that the movie was great. On par with all of the other PA's that offer predictable, yet genuine chills, thrills and scares.

I didn't want Drew's review to affect the way I looked at the movie, so I waited to read it until after. I read it, and I'm sorry, but he is way off base. In Drew's article, he takes exception with the product placement. His ranting about the way they used Apple and the XBox Kinect in the movie is not fitting for a man whose salary and benefits are derived 100% from advertising. Ooooh, I can hear him say, way too many products. Where is the purity? And then he presses play on seven and a half minutes of commercials.

Besides, the product placement wasn't distracting, it was key. Any self-respecting lover of ghost stories knows that the paranormal can be detected by electronic devices like electromagnetic field detectors and even simple digital recorders. I mean, doesn't this guy even watch The Haunted on Animal Planet?

They reason the product placement was brilliant because this technology is perfect for detecting things that would slide by the human eye. You may not know it, but when you are playing Wii or Kinect, the entire room that you are in is filled motion detection technology. The film uses this  incredible technology in a way that furthers the plot seamlessly, and creepily. The Kinect detects energy. If you believe that a paranormal something has energy, then the product that detects it is perfect. It was either the Kinect or the Wii. What are they going to use? The generic motion detector video game that comes in a black and white box?

I really enjoyed the movie, and I now feel a keen desire to purchase something...but what should it be?