'Paranormal Activity' review — things go bump in the night in this chilling stage adaptation of the hit horror movie

Read our review of Paranormal Activity, directed by Felix Barrett, now in performances at the Ambassadors Theatre to 28 March 2026.

Summary

• Paranormal Activity is adapted from the successful horror movie franchise
• It sees a warring couple move from Chicago to London
• Melissa James and Patrick Heusinger star in Felix Barrett's production
• The show features spooky illusions and sound effects in its storytelling

The shocks to the nervous system arrive on cue in director Felix Barrett’s stage iteration of the popular screen franchise Paranormal Activity – seven movies so far, the first ranking among the most profitable films of all time in terms of return on investment.

You want extended blackouts! Loud noises! Blood! This stage version, premiered in 2024 in Leeds prior to various stints in the US, delivers the goods on that score and more in its tale of a young couple newly relocated from Chicago to London, who, on this evidence, have taken their inner demons with them.

The horror play franchise has had an uptick of late, from the return of Ghost Stories at the Peacock Theatre to the multiple roll-outs of 2:22 A Ghost Story. So it’s not entirely this production’s fault if some of the tricks up its sleeve seem mighty familiar by now. Isn’t it de rigueur for this sort of material to somewhere or other fold wonky electrics, sudden musical swells and rattling radiators or the like into the mix?

These would all seem to be issues besetting Lou (Melissa James) and James (Patrick Heusinger) as they adjust to their cut-away split-level home in a new country, though quite what prompted this fresh start is kept purposefully opaque. Kudos to designer Fly Davis for coming up with an interior that seems inviting to start with, none-too-welcoming by play’s end. (I mean, can’t the damn doors stay shut, you can hear a tenant complaining.)

Additional props to Chris Fisher’s illusions, Gareth Fry’s sound design and Anna Watson’s lighting for ensuring that things genuinely do go bump in the night. Audiences, too, are encouraged to look either side of the auditorium (in the stalls at least) for enhancement of sorts there.

Protocol demands that little else be given away, and a flyer added to the programme urges exactly that. What can be discussed is the script in which these scares are couched, which in this case comes from Levi Holloway, whose Chicago-spawned play Grey House arrived on Broadway in 2023.

You certainly get a sense that the spousal life on view isn’t entirely rosy. Will James and Lou have a child, and should they? What’s the importance to them both of religion? And what about James’s pesky mum (Pippa Winslow), who seems rather the interfering sort? The cast of four extends to Jackie Morrison in a bizarre turn as a psychic investigator, who seems to get written out before having anything of substance to do.

Indeed, there’s a paint-by-numbers feel to much of the writing, not least as it pertains to these Americans’ view of London: the weather (tick), the food (huh?). A Brexit reference feels irrelevant to our focus on a marriage built on shifting sand into which both husband and wife are sinking, though the leading players chart their shared uncertainty appealingly and well. Heusinger – a veteran of this role – deserves special praise for coming in at the 11th hour in what marks the Juilliard graduate’s West End debut.

Interestingly, an altogether unexpected gasp came when this save-the-moment leading man at one point removed his shirt, revealing an impressively ripped torso. “Goodness me,” whispered the woman behind me, who clearly knows a stage surprise when she sees one.

Paranormal Activity is at the Ambassadors Theatre to 28 March 2026. Book Paranormal Activity tickets on LondonTheatre.co.uk

Photo credit: Paranormal Activity (Photos by John Persson)