Paranormal Activity 3

 

 

 Allow me to begin this post by saying when it comes to the "Found Footage" genre of horror, for the most part, I fall into the take it or leave it realm of fandom.  Blair Witch?  Hated it.  Cloverfield?  Meh.  Since I don't go out of my way to view this type of films I've never seen Rec or V/H/S which are supposed to be very good so the jury is still out on those.  There is the exception to every rule and the exception here is the granddaddy of them all and the one that most feel began the genre.  I'm talking about Cannibal Holocaust from 1980.  That isn't just a movie it's an experience.  Somewhere in between Cannibal Holocaust and just about every other film in this category is Paranormal Activity.  The reason this works for me is usually in ghost stories things happen and we only see what the "spirits" want us to see. In these films through the advancement of technology we get to see more.  We get to see some of what we we aren't meant so see.  But we do see it and for the first time the spirits have been outwitted.  We can see them and the ghosts don't even know we can see them.  The only question left to answer is if we are so smart, why are we the ones that still end up running away screaming?

 

I know that this is the third film in the Paranormal Activity film series mostly because it tells me it is.  After the first one, and maybe the second one, I'm not sure which number film is which.  Before I began writing this I had to look it up to see how many films are in the series as well as figure out how many of them I've seen.  For the record there are five films so far with a sixth in the works and I've seen four of them.  I think.  So as I said this is the third in the series and it does a fair job of tying itself to the first two.  Fair because to me it feels like there were easier ways to do a sequel as the first 80% of the film is decent.  Loaded with the usual jump scares, unexplained noises, building paranoia and growing tension; it's everything we can expect from a typical haunted house ghost story.  

 

 Where it falls apart, a little for me at least, is in the final act.  They had already connected the film to the previous two as the little girls in this film, it is explained, are the sisters from the first two films.  Taking place in the late 80's, the film shows to us that the sisters have a history of being haunted by spirits.  The explanation given seems like the end of the film had already happened but then the directors (yes there's two of them  Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman) or writer (Christopher Landon) decided to add "Oh, and then this happened after all that other stuff did." at the end.

 

All in all I liked it, the voyeur in me loved it, and that's enough to get 3 Things That Go Bump in the Night out of 5.