You've got to hand it to Paramount Pictures, who picked up a little $11,000 indie horror flick that the studio is massaging into the word-of-mouth sleeper of the fall movie season.

The movie is titled Paranormal Activity, and any resemblance to The Blair Witch Project in theme, execution, ballyhoo and ticket sales is unabashedly intentional. The plot concerns a young couple played by nobodies who buy a video camera to record strange nighttime sounds, moving objects, etc. that have followed the woman since childhood. Rather than the woods, it's a two-story townhouse prowled with shakycam intensity.

I saw Paranormal Activity at Telluride, a late addition to the lineup shown in Elks Park at 10:30 p.m. so everyone was in the proper mood. It's a nice piece of work, featuring more shocks than Blair Witch and a more satisfying conclusion for folks who still don't understand the genius behind the screen suddenly going blank.

Paranormal Activity was an unusual choice for Telluride but a nice break from the arty stuff. Paramount piggybacked on the festival's posterity, making a big deal of sending two prints under cyber-lock and key in case anything went wrong with the first. It created the illusion that this movie is, indeed, something special.

It isn't but Paranormal Activity is a pretty good genre flick, flabby in the first hour when we endure too much conversation between the generally uninteresting characters (a la Cloverfield), and a couple too many teases of frights that don't come. The final 20 minutes is literally a scream.

Here's the hitch(cock): Paramount is releasing Paranormal Activity verrrrrry slowly, and only in a few cities on Sept. 25 (Orlando is closest to us). That's a smart move to make people think it's a cinematic event and demand it in their local megaplex. Next thing you know, there's a phenomenon brewing, with nobody wanting to be left out of the loop.

Check the trailer (which is a nice piece of ballyhoo itself) and visit the Web site where you actually can "demand" Paranormal Activity in your hometown. Hey, it worked in the 80's when we wanted our MTV.