Are paranormal movies missing the point?

Cover of Paranormal Activity

With the latest reviews coming in about the movie 'Paranormal Activity 4' and it's dismal reviews by some, maybe it's time to ask our readers, have your seen it?  What was your take on it?  As with all scary movies released,  you can rest assured we will be seeing it, however, we have to say, most of the movies that are supposed to scare us, simply fall flat.

Here are some key elements that we feel make a movie "scary." Please, chime and and comment on what your thoughts are if you like.

1. Believability
We gotta believe it can happen. Sorry but some movies just insult the intelligence. Too many times you find yourself yelling at the screen, "Look behind you!!"

2. Great plot
Sorry, but the old college group gone paranormal hunting is just flat out overplayed, and underacted..everyone likes the family moving into the haunted home but lets reach a little further,..it's been done already...Your audience gets selective and wiser with each new release so please, film makers, the movie has got to "make sense!!!"

3. Realistic characters
Most supposedly scary movies have a host of unknowns playing the lead roles and I guess the objective here is to hope for a sleeper hit with big returns on little budgets..but really, this doesn't happen very often and if it does, it will be because the movie had a unique angle to it. If its a sequel to a sleeper hit, raise the ante and hire some real actors. Take it beyond where the first movie went and show us something new, we're a fickle bunch and we get hardened off by the same ol' same ol' fairly quickly.

4. The psychological fear factor
For us, this is the most frightening type of movie, and a lot of your Japanese style movies tap into this. These types are successful because it's messing with your mind. You're not being spoon fed a lot of blood and guts...it's making you think, it's making you imagine, its taking your thoughts somewhere they've never gone before. Its not what you see that scares you, its what you can't see, and when you do see it, it's so freakishly disturbing you can't turn away..good examples would be the Silent Hill video games, between the dark areas you can't see, the weird things you hear, and the dismal eery soundtrack you can't help but be scared to look around every corner..and scared not to look as well.

Well that's our 4 points and our two cents, what say you? What do you hate or love about scary movies and what do you think they need to do to really scare our pants off?