‘Paranormal Activity’ at Mirvish is a blood-curdling experience that achieves the near impossible

That’s because compared to horror movies, live theatre has greater physical distance between the action and the audience. There are no cameras to frame our field of vision, no extreme close-ups that stop us from peeling our eyes away. 

This is why jump scares are so rarely found in the theatre. Instead, playwrights often lean into psychological terror or Grand Guignol-style graphic, blood-spitting gore — two horror techniques that, when executed correctly, feel even more effective and visceral on stage than on screen. 

But “Paranormal Activity,” currently haunting the CAA Ed Mirvish Theatre ahead of a Broadway run later this year, breaks all these conventions and manages to achieve the near-impossible. Here’s a horror play built almost entirely on jump scares that’s a genuinely blood-curdling experience. 

Levi Holloway’s drama is a stage spinoff of the popular movie franchise. Yet visually, it bears little resemblance to the “Paranormal Activity” films. Whereas the horror flicks were known for their nauseating, lo-fi esthetic, director Felix Barrett’s production is an unmistakably hi-fi affair, overflowing with technical wizardry. 

Set designer Fly Davis has constructed a detailed replica of a two-storey house, complete with a flush toilet and a second-floor bedroom. The lighting, crafted by Anna Watson, plays with light and shadows, and occasionally floods the stage with eerie shades of blue. Gareth Fry’s sound design further adds to this unnerving atmosphere, with piercing sirens and low-grade, destabilizing rumbles. 

Most impressive are the stage illusions conjured by Chris Fisher: creaking doors, body doubles and objects that inexplicably move of their own volition.

Many of these tricks aren’t new. They’ve been done before in shows like “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” or “Stranger Things: The First Shadow” (both of which Fisher had a hand in). But paired with the other design elements, the illusions feel fresh in this production. And watching them pulled off live feels almost as terrifying as seeing a horror film on the big screen. 

It’s a shame, though, that for all the attention paid to the slick stagecraft, Holloway’s cliche-ridden script comes across as so conventional. His story isn’t adapted from one of the existing “Paranormal Activity” films, yet it seems baked in the same cookie-cutter mould. 

Melissa James and Patrick Heusinger play Lou and James, a young American couple who’ve recently moved from Chicago to London. He wants to get away from his conservative, Christian mother (played by Pippa Winslow). She wants to escape their haunting former home. But as we’re warned by the medium Etheline Cotgrave (Jackie Morrison) early in the play, “Places aren’t haunted, people are.”

Up until the show’s penultimate scene, which acts like a contrived 11th-hour confessional, the central characters remain wispily written, like ghosts in their own story.

As well, James, as Lou, slips in and out of an American accent, while Heusinger plays his role like an annoying college frat bro. He may be one of the most unlikable characters on a Toronto stage this season, but at least he gets some well-deserved poetic justice.

But the original “Paranormal Activity” franchise was never a vehicle for strong acting nor storytelling. Holloway’s spinoff, creaky as it may be, still serves its purpose: guiding the audience from one jump scare to the next. For a theatrical genre as challenging as horror, maybe that’s all you can ask for.