Paranormal Activity 3 Review

It's Halloween, well, it's close at least, and we have another installment of the what will surely be an annual series "Paranormal Activity" and surprisingly, they have kept up the scares to a great degree. There is a bit, or rather a lot, of "yeah this is exactly like the last two" but it still works. If you watch the first two, you still probably won't be able to sleep at night. The same goes for this sequel (unless of course, you go bar-hopping after).

This movie is a prequel to the prequel, as it were. If you watch the movies in numerical order, they are chronologically backward. The setting is 1988, and the two sisters who were the focus of the first two films, Katie and Kristi Rey, are children, living in yet another huge house. Seriously, they must be ridiculously rich to have these houses ESPECIALLY in California. Anyway, just like last time (or is it next time?) freaky stuff starts happening and the dude of the family decides it's a great idea to set cameras up and record hours of footage to see if they can catch whatever it is in the act. Of course, they do pick up crazy stuff, but this time it's a little different. We see the children conversing with an invisible figure named "Toby" (he's only a little scarier than Toby from "The Office") and interacting with him. In fact, Katie physically runs into the figure at one point and cannot pass through it. I cannot really explain the plot more for fear of completely spoiling the film, but trust me when I say that the last twenty minutes are perhaps the most frightening of all three films.

Once again, we get sort of realistic, "day to day" acting from all the characters. The children were surprisingly good and sometimes surpassed their adult counterparts as being more believable. I think as these movies go on, there are more contrived lines and moments, and we're getting a few too many repeat instances that are not as shocking as the first time you saw Paranormal 1. Still, they throw in some new scares and enough fresh ideas to keep it feeling new. I still have a problem with how they handle the whole "dad/husband/boyfriend investigating spiritual stuff" parts. These come off as completely fake and forced. I'm supposed to believe that they read these books for a couple minutes and instantly think, "Oh right, it's a demon because I randomly opened to the correct page. Oh and it feeds on our fear. Oh and it likes kids." Well then voila! That must be it. I almost would rather they leave these scenes out because they really take you out of the experience.

What's still great about this film is that it capitalizes more on what you don't see and more on your anticipation and anxiety rather than how much "scary" stuff can we throw on screen at once. The oscillating fan was a rather brilliant idea (although once again slightly contrived) to implement this method of off-screen anticipation. And again, this is why these are really the only movies that ever really "scare" me personally. It isn't about some CGI monster running around ripping people's heads off or how much blood and gore is on screen at once. It's about playing psychologically with your fears and what you think you might see as opposed to giving you exactly what you expect and hoping it scares you. As I said, it works.

But I really hope they either make this the last one or take a break for awhile (they won't). It just is starting to get a tiny, tiny bit stale. The sheets are moving again, what else is new. The doors are slamming on their own, seen it. If they took some time off at least then maybe come back with something else, perhaps a whole new storyline (because with how this ended I am not exactly sure how they'll continue on this one), it might have that same excitement as the first one. Also, and this is becoming more apparent than I ever realized, you might wanna see this at some other time than a Friday or Saturday night. There are so many "cool" people in theaters nowadays that just feel the need to act like they're above the movie or something like that and it annoys me. This goes with any movie really. If you're too cool for this movie, then don't waste my time or your money and just stay home and talk about how stupid the movie looks rather than saying it in the theater. Movies are meant to be watched virtually silently, without discussion or constant jokes (that is, at least the good ones). It just cheapens the experience, especially in a movie like this, when you've got a bunch of hipsters who are too ironic to be scared.

All in all, I'd highly recommend this as a truly scary movie. If you like the rush of being frightened and a couple nights of mild insomnia, then you should definitely see Paranormal 3. You won't regret it?

Toby agrees...

4/5