Paranormal Activity 3

Starring: Katie Featherston, Sprague Grayden,Lauren Bittner, Chole Csengery, Jessica Tyler Brown, Christopher Nicholas-Smith

Director: Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman

Rated: R

A family is haunted by their youngest daughter’s invisible friend.

The 3^rd installment of the highly successful found footage horror series is set for release, having told the current story of both Katie and Kristi in 1 and 2, for 3 it’s a look at how the demonic haunting’s originated.

Julie (Lauren Bittner) is living with her Videographer boyfriend Dennis (Christopher Nicholas-Smith) and Julie’s two children Katie (Chole Csengery) and Kristi (Jessica Tyler Brown), Dennis begins to hear weird noises and decides to set up some video cameras to figure out what is causing this. Kristi claims it’s her invisible friend Tobie, which her mother rights off as a child’s imagination. I think we can see where this is going.

Paranormal three is directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Shulman the duo who brought us the Documentary “Catfish”, (a doc that many believe is fake or in industry speak sweetened to enhance the product). They do a fine job in the direction of the film, although a found footage film isn’t really a giant leap from Catfish.

Right from the gate I want to say that the whole bloody Mary thing In the commercial, that is for the commercial only, It leads the audience to believe that they are going to see a found footage “CandyMan” which couldn’t be further from the truth. Also if you think you’re going to get a lot of answers as to what starts the chain of events leading to 1 and 2 your mistaken, 3 is set up like an onion and every time you pull a layer off it, it reveals another layer, every answer just creates another question, which lends itself perfectly into being able to create another prequel, This is a series that is being shown in reverse and if they can come up with a clever way to show the footage they can milk the paranormal teat for many more.

The one thing that is a staple of the series and is back again is, due to a lack of budget there is a stronger utilization of suspense and sound, they have to become more clever, rather than just flash some gore. The best utilization of this ingenuity is when Dennis mounts a camera to an oscillitating fan to cover two rooms, it’s as if you are watching a suspense filled game of tennis, each time the camera pans it’s a slow build for the inevitable scare that is coming. That is where the paranormal series shines, its ability to draw out slow scenes, creating tension, the audience knows something is coming but can’t help but get a little jolt anyway. There are a few solid moments where the audience will jump, in a traditional film without the anticipation you would not have even been startled.

There are some general issues like the mother not believing there is something going on and Dennis not being able to show her the crazy footage he has recorded, I don’t care how much of a fight someone put up saying they refused to watch, you would physically make them watch, Also if this creepy crap was going on, I find it hard to believe that the family would just sleep like little babies. There is a point where Katie is freaked out, she is then able to sleep in the same room this stuff happened in, she doesn’t try to sleep with her parents or say she wants to sleep elsewhere, just goes back to sleeping in the haunted area.

The biggest problem is the ending, it felt rushed and forced, I got the same unsatisfied feeling that I got from the end of The Last Exorcism, Entirely unsatisfied,

Leaving more questions than Answers Paranormal Activity 3 is the Russian Nesting Dolls of the genre, the film builds up to a point and then fails to fully deliver.

Grade-78