Paranormal Activity 3

Halloween time usually means a new “Saw,” movie but it seems like those are over and done with for now. Instead there’s the third film in the “Paranormal Activity” series. These must be the new options, torture porn or fake documentaries that startle you with nothingness. That sucks; horror movies used to be awesome (Hollywood! Make more horror movies like “Shutter Island” please!). Each “Paranormal Activity” has gone further back in the timeline making this one a prequel and not a sequel. The second film could be thought of as both because as it mostly takes place before the events of the first movie, the ending takes place afterwards. With this one there is no return to the “present” of 2005, and it take place exclusively in the 1980’s. This is a mistake as the ending has no resolution whatsoever. SPOILER ALERT: the ending is terrible and deserves to be ruined later in this review, you’ve been warned.

These movies are so awful, so to say that this is the worst of all of them really says a lot. And it’s not just a little worse than the others, it’s a lot worse. Even people who are generally scared by this kind of film (the cinematic equivalent of yelling BOO!) will find it lacking in comparison to the others. The first film was slow, awful, boring and quite terrible, but why shouldn’t it be? It only cost ten thousand bucks to make, so give it a break. The second film is the best one, which is like saying the BM that you took today was the best one (it’s still a BM). But they barely were able to make the movie more interesting than the first despite spending a hundred times as much money on it (literally!). At least the second film is able to shed more light on why the events of the first film took place. This third film which predates the other two should have been all about that. But instead it’s so vague and ambiguous that it’s actually annoying.

One terrible thing about this film is that someone had the dumb idea of having the camera oscillate as opposed to being static like in the other films. This was absolutely nauseating. The directing of this film was by far the worst of all of them. The worst thing however is the ending (HERE IT COMES!). In the end you find out that the ghost that has been terrorizing these two girls for three straight films has something to do with a witch’s coven that summoned a demon for no particular reason. But nothing is explained at all, there are just suddenly a bunch of creepy old ladies hanging around and then the movie ends. One of the quotes used in the commercial is something to the effect of “the last fifteen minutes will mess you up for life.” These were the least suspenseful and least interesting fifteen minutes of the whole movie, so whoever said that is a god damned moron. The worst thing is that the story never returns to 2005 to find the main possessed girl confronting or killing the witches or anything. A good ending can often save an otherwise terrible movie, but this one makes the overall movie so much worse. There is nothing good here, but it probably already made a ton of money. That’s the world we live in; good movies don’t matter anymore, just good marketing.