Creepy stuff in the '88 VHS tapes: Oooooo, scary!
The bottom line on any horror picture is clear-cut and simple: How many times does it raise the hair on the back of your neck? How often do you jump? And how much do you fret about where you kept that night light you put away years ago?
The bottom line on any horror picture is clear-cut and simple: How many times does it raise the hair on the back of your neck? How often do you jump? And how much do you fret about where you kept that night light you put away years ago?
Paranormal Activity 3 manages a couple of hair-raising moments, a couple of legitimate jolts, and some funny cheap ones. It was directed by the fellows who did that semi-legit documentary Catfish, so it's more cinematic. Jump cuts and the occasional arresting camera angle intrude on the "found footage" - old VHS home movies from our pursued-by-demons sisters, Katie and Kristi, scenes from their childhood, and their first brush with ghosts.
But this Paranormal doesn't tamper with the formula that worked in the first two. It lacks the "money" moments those films delivered and ends with a finale that's downright conventional.
Katie (Katie Featherston) drops off some tapes with her sister (Sprague Grayden), and the sister's house is trashed by the mere presence of VHS in a nondigital home. We're taken back to the videotaped world of the girls' childhood - 1988, when sexy Mom (Lauren Bittner) was shacking up with Dennis the videographer (Christopher Nicholas Smith). Young Kristi (Jessica Tyler Brown) has an imaginary friend. When Dennis spies a shape outlined in the dust of a video taken during an earthquake, he rigs the house with cameras and starts to see the things going bump in the day. And night.
You know the drill: Lots of "What was that?" and "Weird," lights swinging without a breeze, shadows, sheets rising on their own. Consumer tip: A lot of what's in the trailers isn't in the movie. So if you were thinking of suing over Drive being falsely advertised, wait'll your lawyer sees this.
The novelty here is that children are menaced. And their babysitter. Codirectors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman find a lot more laughs in this situation, tossing in Randy (Dustin Ingram) as the slacker assistant videographer. They lull us into complacency with endless shots of nothing happening, or what looks like nothing. They have a harder time maintaining the point-of-view shots, and the dialogue is banal.
But the kids, despite the absurdity of their sleeping through the night after having supernatural encounters, are on the money - right down to the sibling teasing.
"Only babies have imaginary friends."
Don't think I'd taunt kid sister with that one, Katie. Not when the imaginary friend can shake the whole house.EndText