Paranormal Activity 3

I watched this movie yesterday and just like the others I came out completely tensed up and paranoid, I LOVE IT!

I've heard people say, these movies are slow and nothing really happens but that's kind off the whole point! The entire movie I was scanning the screen for something unusual and even though some things are small they freak me out! In that respect the first movie was still the best since nothing really major happens there and it's just the suspense. Still this one was very good too and had me firmly by the nuts.

The entire movie I was on the edge of my seat, effects are simple but awesome and acting overall wasn't bad at all. A very entertaining movie!

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.

Reigning king of the "Gotcha!" moment, Paranormal Activity is back – and though the premise may have worn thin, (how many compulsive videographers can one extended family have?) its minimalist scare tactics are as effective as ever. Scream for scream, the theater experience is without rival; hushed gasps, nervous tittering, and shrieks of surprise are empirical evidence of the films' effectiveness. Hence the backlash when Paranormal Activity hit home video: these movies cater to a crowd.

A prequel of sorts, Paranormal Activity 3 rewinds the franchise to 1988, illuminating the origins of the Presence that ran amok in parts one and two. Helmed by Catfish directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, the flick treads familiar territory, but keeps the audience on its toes. One of the major criticisms leveled against Oren Peli's original was its predictable cycle of daytime exposition and midnight scares. Rinse and repeat.

Screenwriter Christopher B. Landon, who also wrote the underwhelming Paranormal Activity 2, does a better job this time of pitching the odd changeup. With an omnipresent atmosphere of unease, no moment feels entirely safe. And it goes without saying that the freaky stuff is much more explicitly freaky. Rest assured the Rey family doesn't own a pool, let alone a cleaning robot.

Probably the single most brilliant technical addition to the Paranormal Activity repertoire is the oscillating camera. Panning ominously between kitchen and living room, the simple mechanic works like a suspense machine. Joost and Schulman certainly get their money's worth out of the gimmick, milking it for some of their whitest white-knuckle moments. Fashioned from a tabletop fan, the device is a perfect metaphor for the franchise itself: cheap, homemade, effective.

But for ingenuity and inventiveness, the original is still tops. For all its merciless suspense, Paranormal Activity 3 falls back on a few too many false alarms ("Gotcha!") and bad payoffs, and offers no real innovations in imagery. From Poltergeist to The Exorcist, it's easy to tell where the directors pulled inspiration, almost copy-and-pasting classic moments into the found footage aesthetic.

Then again, anyone expecting real innovation from the third Paranormal Activity film is barking up the wrong tree. Part of the fun is how loosely defined the abilities of the otherworldly antagonist are. It possesses, communicates, and manipulates. But wait, there's more! Paranormal Activity 3 plays like a grab bag of horror ideas and iconography. Like any grab bag, not everything inside is interesting.

For one, hand-held footage plays a more prominent role than ever, which strains the believability of some key sequences. Then there's hokey filler like the "Bloody Mary" urban legend, which squarely fills the vacancy left by the Ouija board on the Paranormal Activity blueprint. And who could forget Randy (Dustin Ingram) and his transparent, annoying attempts at comic relief?

Paranormal Activity 3 doesn't reinvent the franchise. It's not even the best Paranormal Activity film. It doesn't need to be. Its aim is to refine the series' mechanics and reinvigorate audience interest, and it succeeds. So what's next? Likely what keeps Paramount executives up at night is how to squeeze the supernatural saga for every penny it's worth. Long live the reigning king of "Gotcha!"

The first two Paranormal Activity films were quite random. They were essentially a contemporary haunted house tale that took things to a comical level. I know I'm not alone in thinking those movies were hilarious. In the third installment, however, the frights start to creep in. We do get a lot of the usual antics that have become trademarks of the franchise, but as the story progresses, we begin to understand the cause of it. Fans of the series will love it... and those who are not, may be tempted to give the franchise a second chance. This is a very effective prequel and allows you to look at the other two films in a whole new light. Plus, now that we know the whole story, the fourth installment sounds very promising.

I was expecting this movie to be better than the second movie considering it has better reviews and it was. Before watching the movie I wasn't sure if I was going to like the story or find it interesting considering it is set 18 years before the events of the first 2 movies which I was skeptical about. The movie was similar to the first movie as in it had likable characters and their story was really interesting. I thought the paranormal activities were good and did make be flinch a bit just like in the first movie. I also thought it was a good concept of having the 2 children experience most of the paranormal activities.