Grimerlana Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Freaktana A Major Disappointment

Jenna Walter The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

The Movie Diorama Improvement alert, I repeat, improvement alert! I didn't see it coming, my TV didn't see it coming and I'm pretty sure the series itself didn't see it coming. This third chapter betters the previous instalments by a small margin, but it's substantial enough for me to claim this as "not bad". Serving as a prequel for the series, we follow Katie's childhood family as they experience supernatural encounters that prompt them to set up cameras and record the ghostly activity. The exact same premise, plot and execution as the previous two chapters. You could predict the entire film even before pressing play. What sets this apart though, much to my surprise, is just how genuinely creepy the scares are. Not once, not twice, but thrice! I jumped, squeaked and felt my heart pound on three different occasions. The use of heavy bass to signify the presence of the antagonistic ghost "Toby" justifiably heightened the tension. Then, rather cleverly might I add, attaching a camera to a broken fan to provide oscillating movement elevated the scares greatly. The slow panning, back and forth, was masterful. I never thought I would say that about a 'Paranormal Activity' film! The family members, particularly the parents, had some personality and actually resembled real parents. Small details like the flourishing love between them (where they attempt to make a pedestrian sex tape), jokingly frightening each other and cute parenting skills, made for a tiny slab of believability. Alas though, it conforms too heavily on the poor formulaic tropes that its predecessors set. Finished off with a horrifically generic and dull third act, where the film leaves a bad aftertaste of ectoplasm in one's mouth (I could've said ghostly residue...but y'all dirty minded). Seriously though that ending was atrocious. So whilst this is the best in the series so far, it's still not good. Perhaps "Toby" can just end this series in the sequel, or surprise me even more by making it scarier.

Michael Ledo Minor plot spoilersI am not a fan of this series. The stories are too slow to build with long scenes of nothing and then the scare is minimal. This movie is the spoiler for the series as we find out from the subtitle "It runs in the family." We do get an explanation. This is a prequel filmed in high quality DVD using a VHS camera. The acting was better in this one. Lauren Bittner was convincing as Julie. In one scene she puts on a mask and scares the guys. She is so happy she got one over on them, she jumps around with bubbly joy. Also extremely realistic is young Kristi (Jessica Tyler Brown) who convinces me she has an imaginary friend named Captain Howdy, er ah Toby. Likewise child actor Chloe Csengery did an excellent job as Katie as she goes screaming across the room.There is a sex scene that is comical. Dennis (Christopher Nicholas Smith) starts out mouthing "wack-a-da, wack-a-da" porno music and as a romantic sort stampedes right to Julie's chest. There are some strange events going on in the house, so it gets wired for VHS tapes. Now as I recall the longest VHS tape setting was 6 hours (some were 8 hours) which means they would of had to been changed out frequently and viewed for paranormal activity with some scenes lasting for a second. With multiple cameras going 24/7...well you get the idea of how tedious and impracticable this becomes. In one scene the stationary VHS camera is looking at the entire girl's bedroom and then the next second it is focusing on Kristi's bed. While they used the amateur camera for a realistic effect, they didn't stay true to it, which made for a better movie. Maybe one day they will discover how real movies are made.What is not credible is the wife not believing what is going on and refusing to look at the evidence on film. They had to do this so they could keep the constant build up. Dennis filming everything with the camera at grandma's house didn't make much sense. At some point if you are being chased, you stop filming and run. If you are hiding and need to be quiet, you don't keep the camera on. The chase scene is hard to justify filming in all of these types of movies. I felt a little short changed on the ending.Like the other movies, it starts out slowly, but it doesn't sputter and grind its wheels like they did. This is my favorite of the three.F-bomb, no nudity, comical foreplay scene. Was that a 1993 Free Willy stuffed whale in this 1988 movie? Now that was really unexplained.

morrison-dylan-fan After finding the second title in the Paranormal Activity (PA) series to be a bit disappointing, I decided to take a look at the credits for the third PA,and was intrigued to discover that it was directed by two non-Horror film makers,which led to me getting ready to enter the PA world for the third time.The plot-1988:Moving into a new home, Julie,her boyfriend Dennis and Julie's kids Katie and Kristi try to settle down in the new location.As everyone else starts to relax, Kristi begins to talk about an imaginary friend called Toby. Dismissing Kristi's chats to Toby as a child's wild imagination,the family start to hear strange noises,and begin to wonder if objects are moving around the house without any of them touching them.Getting advice from a friend,Dennis sets up video cameras in order to record everything that takes place round the house.As the recordings start,the family start to fear that Kristi's friend Toby is not part of her imagination.View on the film:Teaming up with a co-writer of the second PA,director of the first PA Oren Peli comes back to the franchise with PA 2 co-writer Christopher Landon to deliver a spooky Haunted House tale that also pushes the mythology of the series to the front.Going right to the beginning of the activity taking place,the writers make the references to the other two PA films feel like an omen of the events taking place,thanks to the writers making sure that the references do not dominate the chills.Keeping the family closely knitted,the writers wonderfully use the supernatural horror to build an abrasive friction between the family,as Julie holds on to the hope that Toby is Kristi's dream friend.Swimming from the documentary world,directors Ariel Schulman & Henry Joost lock the house in an icy,slow-burn atmosphere,where each step that the family make round the house is met by creeks and broken objects from an unknown source.Taking advantage of the Found Footage genre,the directors survey the house with excellent,extended tracking shots which creates tense anticipation over something moving in the background,and also casts the impending doom in a superb foreboding manner, as the family are struck by the first ever paranormal activity.

Harry Waterman Paranormal Activity could very well be the only horror franchise worth watching that's new to our screens in the past decade. It can't be denied that each film does borrow somewhat from the last and for some the repeated tirade of CCTV-like footage displaying apparitions, slamming doors and distant wailing could get insufferable really fast, I personally found Paranormal Activity 3 to be far stronger than 2 and on par with 1. The last twenty minutes of the film are really quite something and express promising talent and unforgettable jolts. In Paranormal Activity 3 it is what's suggested that is much scarier than what is seen.