Best of 2009: Two for the price of one

For my No. 9 favorite film of 2009, I’m going to cheat. I’m going to list not one but two movies. But those seem, to me, like natural fits. Neither one by itself might make the cut. But together, and because each added something of interest to the year’s movie lineup, I’m including them here.

They are, in order, “Paranormal Activity” and the appropriately titled “District 9.”

“Paranormal Activity” : Yeah, it’s a gimmick. Yeah, it owes a lot to “The Blair Witch Project,” not just because it’s a mock documentary but because it’s an exercise in stylish horror. Yeah it’s got a plot that is about a complex as a phone book. And, yeah, it cost about 37 cents to make (actually $15,000, but who’s counting).

No matter. Oren Peli’s “Paranormal Activity” offered up some of the most chilling moments of 2009. The movie takes two inordinately ordinary people, the cocky Micah (pronounced Mee-kah) and Katie, and puts them in the the most generic suburban house possible (filmmaker Peli’s own house). Micah thinks he knows best how to protect Katie, though he might have reconsidered if he knew that it was a killer demon haunting her.

What Peli does best is just let the story unfold. And the gradual feeling that he creates is the same kind of chill that you used to feel when mom (or maybe dad) made you take the garbage out after dark. Or go and empty the dryer in the cellar. Or whatever your own particular fear is. By the time the demon jumps at the camera (literally), you’re either gonna jump, too … or laugh. Either way, you’re likely to do it a little nervously.

“District 9” : Like Oren Peli, South African director Neill Blomkamp took a simple concept and made it into something more. The difference is that, even though “District 9” began as a short, it is a far more sophisticated creation.

The simple part involves the story. Told, again, mostly as a mock documentary, it is a variation on the age-old story of colonialism and oppression. Only in this case the colonists are aliens from another planet, and the oppressors are South Africans. Irony alert. Or message alert. Whatever.

But don’t get the impression that Blomkamp overdoes the messaging. Instead, he immerses us in the story of a low-level governmanet functionary - well played by an unknown actor named Sharlto Copley - who over the course of the film evolves from sycophant, to victim to a kind of reluctant hero. And Blomkamp, with some clever use of computer graphics, ends up giving us a kind of sci-fi adventure that has five times the emotional power of “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” at 1/25th the cost.

Oh, boy, another chance to dump on Michael Bay. Never miss one if I can.

Below : The original “District 9” short.