10 More Horror Movies That Had No Right To Be This Good

Given that Paranormal Activity spent more than two years being tinkered-with by Paramount following its initial 2007 festival premiere, it was easily to believe that Oren Peli's micro-budget found footage film was basically a case of The Emperor's New Clothes.

The pre-release buzz surrounding the film, where the studio ballyhooed it as the Scariest Movie Ever Made while insisting that audiences "demand" it be screened in their local cinema, left many suspicious that Paramount was basically using viral marketing to try and profit off a turkey they struggled to get out of post-production limbo.

And while the film certainly isn't for everyone, it is a testament to what a skilled filmmaker can produce with relatively minimal resources, using negative space in the frame to basically let the audience's brain do most of the work, filling in the gaps and implying what can't actually be seen.

If the inevitable spate of sequels soon enough drove the concept firmly into the ground, the original film was an inspired flash in the pan which wrung tremendous atmospheric mileage out of two people being terrorised by a mostly-unseen entity in their home.