Paranormal Activity 3

Horror movies tend to polarize opinions all the time... Far more than the majority of movie genres. What one person might find scary may be humorous to another person... So when I left the theater after a packed screening of this movie , the audience seemed pretty polarized in their opinions. It really is an example of a 'you either love it or hate it movie' (Although some people may not take either extreme which is absolutely fine) .I am one of the people who came out of the theater loving it.

Paranormal Activity 3 is a prequel that goes back to the year 1988. It follows the sisters Kristi and katie (from the last 2 movie's) 18 years before the events of Paranormal activity 1. Its an origin story that gives us a little more information but still leaves us feeling confused and uneasy.

The new cameraman (Dennis) acts as a foster father to Kristi and Katie (The whereabouts of the real father remains open to debate) works as a wedding moviemaker. This gives a decent enough explanation as to why he seems to have top of the range filming equipment (for the era) . His character comes across as more caring and less irritating than Micah from PA1. The Mother of Kristi and Katie (Julie)came across as caring towards her children. The children who play Kristi and Katie actually come across and fairly decent actors.

The basic plot is like the last two movies. Strange occurrences are happening at the house they are staying in. Dennis out of curiosity decides to set up cameras around the house to hopefully find something unusual.

The greatest improvement of this movie over the other movies is probably the pacing. I wont ruin anything (that hasn't been in the trailer at least) but the younger daughter kristi has a seemingly imaginary friend, called toby ,that she talks to at night. As the movie progresses things get out of head fairly quickly and this imaginary friends becomes something real and horrific.

The movie does a good job of taking us out of our comfort zones. We feel confused and that confusion adds a sense of helplessness. While we may know the formula of the last movies we know little about the monster. What we don't see ,but know is there, usually scares us the most. The camera footage itself comes across as grainy and lower in quality than before (Again the trailer is rather misleading) . It makes it feel more authentic. While you know its not real you cant help getting sucked in by the movies world. There are also some clever shots and effects (Scenes with the oscillating camera are ingenious at times) .

The main complaints that I have with the movie are that sometimes the actions of Daniel can be questionable and the ending left me feeling a little unsatisfied.

That being said it doesn't detract from my own experience of the movie. I was terrified! It may not terrify some (the ratings on IMDb show some that already) but I think the best thing to do is go watch it and make up your own mind

To be honest, I never liked Paranormal Activity movies. It's about people who lived in a house with cameras and there are evil spirits haunting them then all of the events are caught on tape. The idea is interesting but the execution always end up being unsatisfying. Paranormal Activity 3 is the very beginning of the series. It's not actually a prequel. It's more of a backward trilogy to make the ending of the rest of the Paranormal Activity films mysterious. Although, the twist is a little bit predictable but Paranormal Activity 3 has a decent story to tell with these found footage. And it really has the scares. Finally, this series has a genuine scare.

Paranormal Activity 3 reveals all the mysteries of the first two movies. Unlike the first two, instead of watching the lives of these people and wait for the spirits to come out, this one really tells a story through the videos. The story is not anything new though but the execution is decent. The second Paranormal Activity narrates almost everything in the story. Here you don't need it, you just have to look at the video footage to know the story.

Aside from its storytelling, Paranormal Activity is all about the scares. They improved the scares by moderating the slow burns and keep the objects floating. The ghosts aren't quite invisible like the first two. Here, it's campy. You can see its shadows. And of course, there's a lot of threat from the ghost. The scares are more than just jump scares. It has more terror and gumption to the thrills which is kinda fun. The cameras are well shot. Everything is well made. But the twist remains predictable for some reason.

Paranormal Activity 3 is not earning the fear anymore. It's now earning the scares. It's great to see Paranormal Activity with exact scares than wait for more than five minutes to be scared. It's not the scariest horror movie of the year but it's the best part of the series and also the most decent horror of the year. I still wanna see the parts on the trailer that wasn't show in the actual film but Paranormal Activity 3 is satisfying enough in its short runtime. Decent enough as a found-footage-horror-film.

All the elements remain: constant filming of the house, some unpredictable scares and frights, morbid obsession with finding out what's behind all the activity, but it feels like it opens up and raises just as many questions as it tries to answer. In this prequel we are shown life in the late '80s as the family deals with an unseen force disturbing the family's idyllic peace and wellbeing. We are presented with some insight into how and why these things haunt Katie in her later life, but it still feels like it's missing something. Overall, though, it's an entertaining 1.5 hours, but nothing incredibly new is here. See it, but don't set the bar too high. 6/10.

As I said in the title, if you enjoyed the first two films, this is well worth seeing. Yes it does re-hash some concepts from the previous two, yes there are some laughs, you may be left with some un-answered questions, and yes, a lot of the scenes from the trailer aren't in the actual film.

But you know what, if you want to see a masterpiece in inventive horror, watch a DVD of The Exorcist. If you want to watch something that will scare the crap out you psychologically, watch The Ring or The Shining. This film is exactly what it says on the tin, the third installment of a pretty decent series of films.

So some of the frights have been used before, they still made my heart skip a beat when they were on a big screen. And the scenes from the trailer weren't in the film itself, so what, the scenes that made up the film itself were done well. I'm guessing if you're still reading you're a fan of the first two films, if that is the case, ignore the iffy reviews and go see.

If you want to be anal about trailer scenes, plot holes and "what is the answer" questions, wait for the DVD.

Saw "Paranormal Activity 3" at a special Hollywood premiere at the ArcLight. I also had the honor of seeing Katie Featherston signing autographs for us fans waiting patiently to see it. Unfortunately, I left my Droid smart phone in the car because it was my understanding we would be wanded for recording devices. That didn't happen and many people had their camera phones with them. I would have loved to get my pic taken with Katie. Oh well.

Anyway, back to the movie. "Paranormal Activity 3" is a prequel to the first two movies. The movie starts in 2005 with Katie getting together with her younger sister Kristi at her house and both come across some old VHS tapes of them taken in 1988 when they were children left behind by their deceased grandmother. They watch a tape and that is the premise of the film.

The overriding glaring error in this film is that the entire 1988 portion of the film was shot in HD in 1:85:1 or 16 x 8 ratio which caused me to ask the question "oh really?" If my memory is correct, HD video in that ratio did not exist. The film would have been more realistic had the picture quality looked more like VHS with the ratio in 1:33:1 or 4x3. The father, Dennis, works as a wedding videographer and he has a linear editing system consisting of two 4x3 monitors and VHS tape similar to the editing system I used when I took video production classes in college in the early 1990s so the film gets kudos for that.

The film starts with young Katie celebrating her birthday with her little sister Kristi looking on. As the story progresses, we discover that Kristi has an imaginary friend named Toby. When it's time for the girls to go to bed, Kristi gets up, walks toward the camera (yes, just like the first two movies, this family has camcorders set up around the house recording their life) and starts talking to her imaginary friend. Meanwhile, Dennis and his wife Julie decide to make love while the camera is rolling. Just as things start to get hot, an earthquake strikes. As Dennis and Julie run out of their room to check on the kids, crushed pieces of plaster fall from the ceiling. When the plaster lands, it appears to hit something invisible, the first sign that there is a spirit in their midst. Throughout the film, things escalate as Kristi's imaginary friend starts taking things to higher levels causing her older sister Katie great worry and concerning Dennis as the paranormal happenings are all caught on tape.

The first "Paranormal Activity" film had a great premise in which a couple liked to record their life on tape. Problem with making sequels with a story like this is you get every family recording their lives on tape and so you start to wonder why is it that every generation of this family likes documenting every move they make? Another thing I found tedious is that like the first two movies (and practically most clichéd horror films), this film contained quite a bit of "scare scenes" that makes you jump. This film had a few legitimate scares but had one that was so predictable, I didn't even budge in my seat when it happened.

With every subsequent sequel having more or less the same premise, you start to wonder when this story is getting old.