Paranormal Activity 3

2009's low budget Paranormal Activity was a clever little ghost story that used our fear of the dark and the unknown to great effect. It was such a big hit at the box office, it managed to officially replace the Saw franchise as the annual Halloween horror release. Last year's sequel, Paranormal Activity 2, was a disappointment to me at least, as I thought it played too close to what worked last time, and much of the thrill was gone. For the latest installment, directors Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost still stick a little too close to tradition, but manage to throw in an ingenious new method of shooting the action, and a lot more genuine thrills and scares than the previous sequel. It might not be very original, and I don't know how long this formula can last, but Paranormal Activity 3 worked for me, at least.

Said formula revolves around two sisters, Katie (Katie Featherston) and Kristi (Sprague Grayden), who have been haunted by a demonic and invisible entity most of their lives. In the past films, we watched the ghostly happenings around them via video camera equipment that each of their husbands had set up to record the strange goings on in their suburban homes. The main gimmick of Paranormal Activity 3 is that the movie is set in September 1988, when Katie and Kristi were still children. In this film, Jessica Tyler Brown (young Kristi) and Chloe Csengery (young Katie) portray the sisters, and we get to see the very beginnings of the hauntings, when little Kristi starts talking about and to an imaginary friend who may or may not be more real than anyone suspects, and whom goes by the name of "Toby".

Toby supposedly lives in the crawlspace in the little girls' bedroom, and wakes young Kristi up in the middle of the night to talk to her. Strange things start happening around the house, such as mysterious sounds or bumps in the middle of the night, and the girls' electronic toys turning on by themselves. Their mother, Julie (Lauren Bittner), doesn't think much of the strange things happening, but her boyfriend Dennis (Christopher Nicholas Smith) just happens to be a professional video editor for wedding videos, and starts using his equipment to tape the stuff happening around the house around the time Toby shows up. He hooks cameras up to every room in the house, including one attached to a rotating fan, so it can pan back and forth between the connected kitchen and the living room. Unfortunately for Dennis, and the rest of the family, Toby obviously does not like to be videotaped, and he lets it known with doors slamming, furniture smashing, and soon putting the lives of Kristie and Katie in danger.

Paranormal Activity 3 is the kind of movie you need to see in a theater with the right crowd to get the full effect the movie's going for. It's the kind of movie where you jump at the slightest sound, or the slightest notion that something's there that wasn't there before. (Is that someone's shadow, or is it something...else?) You laugh when it turns out to be nothing, and then BAM...the real jolt hits. Sure, this is nothing new, but this movie knows how to dish out the jolts and make them hit hard. It does a great job of creating tension and suspense out of very little, or sometimes nothing at all, and then rewards us with a strong payoff as Toby increasingly makes his presence known to people other than Kristie. There are some clever bits involving Julie and a babysitter that is watching the girls, and the whole set up of the camera hooked to a rotating fan creates some memorable imagery.

It could be argued that the movie is all jolts and no brains. Anyone who goes to these movies to think will be wasting their time. There's the whole situation with Dennis filming certain events that just simply shouldn't be. There are moments where he should just put the camera down and run, but he keeps on filming for the sake of the audience. Maybe we should be grateful, but it still requires a great leap of logic to swallow the fact that hell is breaking loose all around him, and all he cares about is getting that perfect shot. There's also the film's ending, which I will not reveal, but generates more questions than answers, as well as creates some plot holes concerning the earlier two films. The earlier entries seemed to be pretty self-contained, but this ending seems to be a set up for the inevitable fourth movie coming next year.

It would also be a great disservice not to mention that the film's ad campaign is made up largely out of footage that is not in the final film. This puzzles me, obviously. Yeah, it's kind of nice for once not to have the best scares in the film ruined in the ad campaign, but it still seems very misleading. Comparing the movie on the screen with the movie in the trailers, it's almost like two completely different films were shot. Was that the case? Are they saving this stuff for the DVD? Will the footage appear in the next one? Was there a lot of last minute editing? I figure we'll know the answer soon enough, but it's still a little frustrating. The footage in the trailer even seems to hint at a completely different ending, one that fits a little bit better with what has been established in the earlier films. Why the filmmakers went the route they did, I don't know.

That being said, I guess the ultimate question is Paranormal Activity 3 scary? In a quick jolt kind of way, yes. It made me tense and uneasy, and while it played out during its brief 80 minute or so running time, I was completely involved. You walk out of the theater, you laugh, and you remember having fun watching it. Those who didn't like the other movies won't like this one, I gather. But, if you've been with the series up to this point and generally had fun, this one won't disappoint.

See the movie times in your area or buy the DVD at Amazon.com!

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