The no-budget smash “Paranormal Activity” wants to trick audiences into believing the footage in the film is real, not fiction.

Even the most gullible among us don’t buy it, but the presentation is realistic enough to set up the film’s meaty scares.

Frankly, “Paranormal” feels convincing, from the gentle bickering between the leads to the less than glossy shocks that multiply as the movie heads toward its creepy conclusion.

One critical way the film conveys that sense of realism is the casting of Katie Featherston.

Or at least her curves.

Featherston is a beautiful young woman, but she doesn’t look quite like recent damsels in distress. She’s got a fuller figure than most of them, to be blunt.

That isn’t a critique on her weight. Frankly, I wish more actresses looked like her rather than the hyper-Pilates stick figurines we see on the big screen these days.

But Featherston’s conventional figure gives her movie an added sense that what we’re watching isn’t some artificial construct – even though it is just that.

It’s likely the next time you see her on screen she’ll be thinner, leaner and more like her Hollywood peers. But for “Paranormal Activity” her figure proves a very normal part of the film’s gimmick.

(Photo: Katie (Katie Featherston, left) and Micha (Micha Sloat, right) play a young couple whose house may be haunted in “Paranormal Activity.” Photo credit: Courtesy of Paramount Pictures)

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