Directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman
Starring Lauren Bittner, Chris Smith, Chloe Csengery and Jessica Tyler Brown
So it's come to this - back to the Paranormal Activity films.
A preface: I saw the first two films in theaters, and liked the hell out of both. I'll never forget watching the first movie and then driving 40 miles back home in a rain storm through the middle of nowhere in rural Minnesota, my mind playing tricks on me the whole time because I'm a giant wuss. The second one didn't have any experience that memorable, but I still enjoyed it. The ironic thing (did I properly use the word "ironic" there?) is that if you go back to the the handy-dandy October 2010 section of this here blog and read my original review, I was already hoping that the series was over because I didn't know what else you could do with the concept. Well, lo and behold, there's been something like 19 additional films since then. And I kept my word and totally ignored all of them. And there they stayed buried in my subconscious for five years...until I saw a box set of all six movies last Halloween for the low-low price of twenty bucks. It's hard to say no to that kind of horror collection padding. I'm just now getting around to watching them, which means...buckle up. There is a good chance that this series of reviews is going to suck.
I say that because reviewing movies like this are a challenge. Found footage...yeah, it's a genre that is VERY easy to get some cheap scares, but it's one of the hardest things on the planet to make feel authentic. The $10 million question in all of these films is always the following: WHY ARE THESE PEOPLE STILL FILMING??!? While The Blair Witch Project wasn't the first movie done in this vein, it actually did make an attempt to explain this question and feel as authentic as possible. The PA movies and a lot of what came after have a tendency to feel like traditional horror films shot in the first-person. These movies also tend to be very short and minimalist, so there's only so much padding out that I can do with my writing. I've often been accused of having diarrhea of the keyboard, but what you're about to witness is someone attempting to pull off some kind of minor miracle the likes of which Jesus himself would be damn proud of. Is that enough introduction? Probably too much. Let's go.
Upon re-watching the first two films, my opinion of them is confirmed. The first is still a damn scary time with only one dopey plot move (the demonologist who conveniently has to disappear just as the movie approaches its final trimester), and the second is a fun enough time that has the weakness of the husband character. For the uninitiated, the two films are the stories of sisters Katie and Kristi, each of whom finding themselves dealing with a demonic presence in their house. At the end of the first, Katie is possessed by said demon and kills her boyfriend, leading to this really nifty sequence in the second where the events sync up. This movie explores the events where it all began...which means we're heading back to the past like the Angry Video Game Nerd. The second movie was also a prequel. We'll be back to horse and buggy days by the time this series is over, even though cameras hadn't been invented yet. I'm 47% positive that this wouldn't stop any screenwriter.
So the film opens with Katie (the older sister, for those keeping score) delivering a box of old VHS tapes from their childhood to Kristi, currently pregnant with the kid who would serve as the plot lynchpin in the second movie. This would be your epic set-up, as we're looking at the old tapes from their childhood. Flashback to 1988, where we meet young Katie, young Kristi, and their mother Julie. Julie is living with her boyfriend Dennis, a confirmed slacker whose job is videotaping weddings. Oh-so-convenient for the plot, I know. Early on in the film, Dennis talks Julie into making a sex tape, only for them to be interrupted mid-coitus by an EARTHQUAKE and the camera to catch dust falling onto an invisible person. It actually is kind of creepy, I must admit.
Well, Dennis sees this and immediately sets up surveillance all around the house to catch the invisible intruder. This enables Dennis to discover that Kristi's relationship with her invisible friend Toby is deeper than he initially thought; she gets up in the middle of the night and talks to him, for starters. Seems normal to me.
If there is one thing that the Paranormal Activity movies do well, it is set up at least one true money sequence that builds and builds and eventually explodes. This one is no diferent, as Julie and Dennis head out for a night on the town and leave the kids in care of a babysitter. Cue a really creepy sequence that takes the concept of the classic "sheet with two cut-out eyes" ghost and brings it to the 21st century. I'll admit that I was biting my nails during this stuff, and it's unfortunate that the next attempted trademark scare sequence involving Dennis' Shaggy-from-Scooby Doo work partner and more earthquakes isn't anywhere near as cool.
Believe it or not, we're already something like fifty minutes into this movie, which means that it's time to wrap things up. Dennis eventually finds a Pagan symbol in the girls' bedroom, and once the disbelieving mother has something happen directly to her, it's off to the home of the adoring grandmother. Everything that happens from this point on is entirely predictable, and it's also where the movie feels its LEAST authentic. Particularly in the final five minutes or so, when I was left to perform mental gymnastics at the thoughts of how and why Dennis was still recording all of this stuff.
SPOILER ALERT for anyone who doesn't want such things, so skip this paragraph if you don't want key surprising-but-not-really twists revealed. Julie's mother, and the kids' grandmother, is actually the leader of an honest-to-goodness COVEN that has been causing all of this demonic activity. It's probably spelled out more in further sequels, but I think the idea is that they sacrifice each family member's first-born son, which explains why the grandmother was so adamant about Julie trying for more kids and so disappointed when she announced that she was done. It actually is kind of an interesting idea, but the second that the family shows up at grandma's house, it's projected from a mile away.
Is this movie any good? Kind of. For starters, the actors playing the young versions of Katie and Kristi are pretty bad. Chris Smith is also pretty grating as Dennis. Emotional stakes just aren't there in this movie, and it's the nature of the beast when you're dealing with prequels. We already know how the story ends, so a lot of the suspense is kneecapped before the story even starts. The concept had already been stretched almost as far as it could be at this point, and we're only on movie #3. Thus, the only thing that this flick could do was craft some shocks. There are more than a few things in this flick that will make you jump, but you know my stance on those. You jump, you recover, and you forget aout it approximately 2.7 seconds later. Thus, this movie wasn't my thing once the end credits rolled, but once those end credits roll it doesn't matter. The proof? This movie set records for highest-grossing midnight showings and opening days for a horror film. And what that ultimately means for you saps is the aforementioned upcoming reviews.
** 1/2 out of ****. I actually did enjoy this film while I was watching it, but not in the way that I would ever want to watch it again. That prequel thing really does kill it. Supposedly, though, the next film is actually a sequel to Paranormal Activity 2, and given the explanation that we get in this one, I would be lying if I said I wasn't intrigued by that prospect. Stay tuned. /thundercrash
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