You'll be seeing a LOT of this shot in the movie
If there’s one thing you’ll need to make it through the Paranormal Acitivity movies. Just one thing? It’d have to be patience. What else will get you through three movies that have a net total of, say, 15 minutes of “action” or “scares”? Not even a large soda was enough to keep my eyes from getting heavy during the interminable stretches of Absolutely-Nothing-Happening.
The basic premise of these films, and the interesting formula employed, have their merits, I suppose. Stretch out the moments of interest between long bouts of tedium, so that when something does happen, it produces even more effect. And audiences have been willing to go along with that concept for the first two films—but will familiarity breed contempt? Because part three is awfully, you know, familiar.
It’s a prequel to the other two films, and the found videocassettes are from 1988 this time around. But mostly it’s video camera one (grown-ups’ bedroom) switching to video camera two (kids’ bedroom) and back again—and back again—and so on. You’re getting sleeeeepier, and sleeeeepier—you’re eyes are getting very heavy and you are about to drift off to WHAMMO!! And repeat. And repeat.
There are, to be fair, a couple of pretty cool things. At one point, the guy decides to mount the camera to an oscillating fan that has had the blades taken off and replaced by a make-shift platform for the camera to rest on. So, as the camera moves slowly from one side of the room to the other, and back again, the filmmakers are able to build a heightened sense of tension. For a while. And then it’s back to Zzzzzzzz.
Also, as has been the case with the other two PNA movies—the last two minutes are scary. Fun scary—you’re laughing and you’re scared, and that’s cool. And then it’s over. The true blue fans of the franchise have nothing new to either interest or offend them. And the rest of us can probably enjoy some cat naps in between the far too infrequeZzzzzzzzzzZzzzzzzzzzzZzzzzzzWHAMMO!!
“Paranormal Activity 3” is an exploitation ‘scary’ film about two adults and two children dealing with a ghost. There are about five interesting scenes surrounded by boredom. Don’t waste your time and money.
GRADE = “C-“