Friday, October 21, 2011

Paranormal Activity 3 Review


The third tale in Paramount's Paranormal Activity saga hit the big screens at midnight last night in the shape of a prequel, set 18 years before the first film, documenting sisters Katie and Kristi as things begin to go bump in the night for the very first time.

A quick throwback to the previous frightful flicks finds Katie and Kristi as we know them unpacking boxes in Kristi's house until her husband stumbles across video tapes of their childhood courtesy of Katie's late grandmother. Set up the VCR, and our show's good to go as the tapes jump back to 1988 when the girls were much younger, living with their mother Julie (Lauren Bittner) and her boyfriend Dennis (Christopher Nicholas Smith)...oh and Kristi's imaginary friend Toby who makes things go bump in the night.

Que creepy, frightful, scare scenes from the word go following a small earthquake occurring during our young couple's marijuana induced one night in Paranormal Activity (they were making a sex tape)revealing an invisible figure underneath some falling dust. From this point on Dennis is obsessed with the supernatural goings on of their new home. Especially when Kristi begins mentioning her older, invisible, man-friend Toby who really doesn't like it when you go into his cupboard which just so happens to be at the bottom of our girls' bedroom.

Scared yet? You should be! The first hour showcases some terrifying scenes. Kristi conversing with the entity in her home, often running around the house at night and even stopping to stare for a good few hours at her parents' sleeping forms. The Bloody Mary bathroom scene has to be one of the crucial nail-biting scenes, whilst Katie crashing into an invisible Toby and then being pulled up by her hair is another great moment. Followed closely by the events that lead to mother Julie packing her family up and taking them to the safety of grandmother's house. You know what they say about grandmother's house right? Wolf in sheep's clothing!


Strange noises, furniture being thrown, people being forced around, Paranormal Activity 3 has it all. It even has a nice little rotating camera device attached to a fan, which I like to call the fan-cam which basically means you have no clue what's coming next! The film works well for the first 60 minutes until the plot moves to Grandma's house where the fact that they brought the camera with them doesn't really seem plausible and once the coven of old Witches enter it only confuses the general plot and as a result humanizes the entire trilogy.

If you are looking for answers from the first two PA's, better luck next year when I'm sure Paranormal Activity 4 will no doubt be available. Centered around an Ipad strapped to a metallic bird in the year 2055 about a descendant of Katie and Kristi's. If you are looking for a quick scare to get the Halloween juices flowing then PA3 more than ticks the boxes.

Paranormal Activity 3 was directed by Henry Boost and Ariel Schulman and can be seen in cinemas now.

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