It’s inevitable. Every Halloween season, we get some sort of sequel to a popular franchise to appease the public, in an attempt to generate some cheap scares on an even cheaper budget. Up until last year, Saw was getting the job done, but it wrapped up nice and neat on a Final Chapter note. Now we have Paranormal Activity, a series of movies that bases itself on hidden cam footage of demons doing nasty things. The first two stories were told in a similar sense, with occasional scares in an otherwise doldrums format. Would the third movie, Paranormal Activity 3, be the one to change things up and actually be good; it's on track to make $50 million it's opening weekend so that means something right? ‘Fraid not. Though there’s a good idea here when it comes to being a prequel of the first two – and featuring girls who would later go on to appear in the first two films in adult form – it pretty much runs the same gamut. There’s a demon murking about, slamming doors and basically sending little chills up and down their spines until, surprise, the truth is revealed in like the last few minutes or so. While this one has a better ending than the first two movies cooked up, it still doesn’t make up for the fact it’s the same old thing. Anyway, the story. It focuses on Katie (Katie Featherston) and Kristi Ray (Sprague Grayden), two young girls who live in a two-story house with their mom Julie (Lauren Bittner) and her boyfriend Dennis (Chris Smith).
In the beginning of the film, it’s noted that the girls are talking to some sort of imaginary friend. Not alarming at first, as most kids usually deal with imaginary friends anyway. But what this one’s capable of seems a bit spooky, especially once the footage reveals some strange goings-on in the house. A good horror movie knows its way around a set-up and the scare that leads into it. But the problem with the Paranormal Activity series is that it’s too much set-up. For about a good seven eights of the film, we’re basically sitting around watching footage switch between multiple cameras, particularly one placed on an oscillating fan that revolves across rooms. Too much time is spent with dialogue that doesn’t fit into the film, nor characters that truly matter. The main focus should be on the two little girls, and when someone else is brought into focus, cue the yawns. Logic never really enters the picture in Paranormal Activity 3. Like the previous films, these folks just don’t get the notion that they should just move to another state or try something different.
Nope, like idiots, they stick around and try to get to the bottom of things, Scooby-Doo style. But where Scooby-Doo had a colorful villain, we merely have some sort of demon presence that likes to do subtle little things, like the ghost sheet floating around or the suddenly slammed door that, well, was just asking to be shut anyway. There is one credit here, and that’s the performances of both Featherston and Grayden. They’re definitely up to task when it comes to acting like there’s some sort of presence within the house, like frightened little girls rather than ones who think it’s just the same old thing. Only one adult manages to stand out in the cast, but you’ll know who it is within the last few minutes. Why spoil it here? The ending is probably the best part of the film. Where the original’s was a little too straightforward for its own good (forgoing an even better alternative ending) and part 2’s was all like “What the?”, part three actually has a serviceable one that delivers some pretty good scares. But again, this is after sitting through about like 80 minutes of stuff where barely anything happens, and when they do come off, the scares disappear so quickly, you barely remember laughing at yourself afterward.
But this ending will jolt you a bit, and you’ll start to see where everything takes shape with the first two films. Is it worth sitting through the film on its own merits, though? Even though Henry Joost and Ariel Schulmani try to boost new life into the franchise, it ends up slipping on the same old premise as the last ones. Here’s a spooky house, here’s spooky stuff happening, and only when it’s too late do things completely get out of hand. No matter what we say, the movie’s going to be a box office success. It already grossed $26 million on Friday alone, assuring that, yep, we’re gonna get more Paranormal Activity flicks in the future. But it’d be nice if we went without the documentary approach and instead went for something much more visceral, to the point of what this demon really wants to do. If the film maintained the kind of energy the last few minutes had, we’d really be getting somewhere. Instead, it’s just a temporary spook machine…and one that’s worth waiting for on DVD, at best.
