I celebrate Halloween night with a plate of nachos and a screening of John Carpenter's "Halloween." I never grow tired of that movie; it's one of the scariest of all time, produced on a shoestring budget and accompanied by a score - written by the director no less - that still evokes dread when, for instance, I use it as my cellphone ringtone. "Halloween" pushes all the right buttons - madness lurking within the small-town heart of America. And it's got babysitters!

But every year I root for a replacement candidate, a new horror movie that promises the same level of tension and the relentless (and vicarious) assault of fear served up by "Halloween." Modern horror moviemakers have forgotten the art of tension. Their films are celebrations of CGI and hackneyed plot elements - trendy teens rise to superhero status after being stalked by The Slasher.

This year's candidate, "Paranormal Activity," offered a departure from the horror movie norm or so the trailers promised. I hadn't heard of "Paranormal" until I attended Spooky Empire Con, a horror convention held in Orlando alongside Universal Studio's ScreamFest. My horror novelist pal Adam Troy Castro told me it was genuinely frightening. If it scared Adam I wasn't sure I'd survive the night.

I then began seeing references to "Paranormal" online, part of what I guessed was a viral marketing campaign. The ploy was that moviegoers would "demand it," as if "Paranormal" were having trouble with its distribution and wouldn't show at "a theater near you" unless we, the public, intervened.

Oh well. I played along and demanded it, and even posted a link on my Facebook page. I considered it all part of the fun, like the glasses for "Friday the 13th 3-D" or some of the old B-movie gimmicks in the '50s - seat buzzers for "The Tingler" - I'd seen in fright film documentaries.

From the trailers I was able to deduce "Paranormal's" premise: A young suburban couple is being visited by a supernatural entity so they set up a videocamera to capture its naughty behavior.

Truth be told I was a little worried about seeing "Paranormal." It supposedly touched on one of the fears I think we all share - the inexplicable sound in the house at night when the lights are turned off. For years I was able to sleep easy, telling myself those weird noises were the cats knocking over an empty Miami Dolphins plastic cup sitting on the kitchen counter, or stepping on the remote so that TV came on "by itself" at 2 a.m. Now that the cats are gone I can't easily dismiss that weird scraping sound at the foot of the stairs.

Creepy.

So with just a little trepidation I set out with my friend Robbyn and her mom for an afternoon showing of "Paranormal Activity." At least it would still be daylight when I got home.

"Paranormal" is the story of Katie and Micah (pronounced MEE-kuh, for God's sake) who live in what I'd guess is a quarter million dollar house in suburban San Diego. Katie is a college student majoring in English education (God help her); Micah is a day trader (he already deserves to die). The two are not married; they've been dating for a couple of years and recently moved in together.

The story begins with Micah shooting video of Katie as she arrives home in her Miata convertible. In fact, "Paranormal" is told entirely from the viewpoint of the videocamera. Already you're groaning, memories of "Blair Witch" and "Cloverfield" fresh in your mind. You can relax; these folks went all out and bought a tripod so there's not too much "shaky cam" footage.

Katie teases Micah about the money he spent on the high-tech cam planted on his shoulder; he tells her it cost half as much money as he made at work that day - more reason to hate his ass. Then she asks WHY he bought it and in a brief infodump we learn he plans to digitally record evidence of the manifestations that have been bothering them in the night.

What follows is a good 60 minutes of "getting to know Katie and Micah" with the obligatory "Put that damn camera down" and visits from young, skeptical friends who drink wine and make things out of beads dredged from the clearance bin at ACMoore. While Katie has a problem with the cash Micah spent on the videocam she has no qualms about hiring a psychic, who tells them paranormal visitations come in two flavors: ghosts and demons. Unfortunately he's a ghost guy; what they've got is your basic demon and the demonologist is out of the country on vacation (I had no idea the field of paranormal investigation was so specialized ... or that it paid so well its practitioners could spend a week sunning themselves in Cozumel. Oh well. Such is California). The psychic also tells them not to aggravate the demon by trying to communicate with it or challenge it. Apparently the demon is a teenager.

Meanwhile the peculiar nocturnal activity slowly escalates, probably the demon's way of saying "Put that damn camera down." We learn Katie has been plagued by this entity since she was a child, something Micah hadn't known and now resents, as if she'd brought herpes into their relationship. Micah ignores the psychic's advice and borrows (not buys) a Ouji board, a move they both will regret. And so forth.

"Paranormal" does a pretty good job of portraying an ordinary couple caught in extraordinary circumstances but I found several problems that I'll try to discuss without giving away the ending.

First, the pacing is glacial. About 45 minutes into the movie I found myself struggling to remain awake. After the first three or four "bumps in the night" I wanted something to happen - anything - and it didn't.

Second, Katie's hysteria grew tiresome. True, she wasn't the cliched shrieking female in need of saving by a man we see in horror movies from the '30s on. But her helpless babbling wore me out. Her response to every paranormal event was to scream at Micah, "We need to figure out something!"

Third, Micah's obsession with the videocamera borders on the comical. At every provocation, no matter how dramatic, Micah's first response is to grab the videocam. At least it wasn't the Never-Ending Batterycam of "Cloverfield."

But my biggest gripe with "Paranormal" is that it fails to capitalize on suspense. A good horror movie (or book for that matter) builds tension through a series of steps and pauses where characters try to solve a problem, fail, then learn from their mistakes and try again. The movie "Alien" is a fine example of the process. In "Paranormal" the characters make a couple of fumbling attempts to solve the problem then give up and merely endure. The movie generates fear through the sudden loud noise or unexpected image - good for a momentary shock but nothing more - instead of evocative storytelling.

The ending comes abruptly. I told Robbyn, "This better not be the ending" but it was. As we left the theater I found myself asking, "Is that all there was to it?"

"Paranormal" has been described as the "scariest movie in a decade." That isn't true. "The Ring" and "The Grudge" were much more terrifying, as was "The Mist." For real fear step on the bathroom scales, or check your 401(k) statement.

This Halloween I'll be planted in front of the TV with my nachos - shredded chicken with jalapeno slices topped with Montery Jack cheese - watching Jamie Lee Curtis stab a coathanger into the eye of Michael Meyers.

By the way, I slept just fine Saturday night. A couple of odd noises. I blamed them on the ghosts of my cats.