Paranormal Activity 3

The Paranormal Activity saga continues with the third entry in the series, a prequel that is supposed to explain the events of the first two movies. It is set 18 years prior to the first two flicks apparently, although the incessant presence of the video camera (clunky as it may be), fashion and décor is straight modern times.

The film is a dog’s breakfast of jump scares, baffling plot points, long waits for more jump scares, remarkable HD video quality for a VHS recording, slick cuts, and in-your-face “activity” that generates more laughs than chills. Fans of getting momentarily spooked may enjoy the cheap scares here, but fans of horror that develops through mood, story and characters are best served elsewhere.

The convoluted plot gets underway in 2005 when Katie (Katie Featherston) delivers a box of videotapes to her sister Kristi (Sprague Grayden). A year later, Kristi’s house is burgled and the tapes go missing. Luckily, we get to find out what’s on the tapes. They came from 1988 when a young Katie (Chloe Csengery) and Kristi (Jessica Tyler Brown) are living with their mom Julie (Lauren Bittner) and her boyfriend Dennis (Chris Smith).

Dennis is a wedding videographer, which apparently means that he videotapes every single second of his life. When some suspicious activity shows up right around the time Kristi starts talking to an imaginary friend named Toby, Dennis steps up his video recording and sets up a camera in the girls’ room. I can’t even begin to speculate how many tapes he goes through, but occasionally some creepy stuff shows up. Dennis can’t convince Julie that there’s anything wrong, but the events continue to escalate.

Describing the entirety of the plot is an elaborate exercise, but needless to say there’s something to do with witches. The witches work with demons and attempt to brainwash girls of child-bearing age into having sons for the demons to gather, then the child-bearing woman has her memory wiped. This is the theory Dennis has, anyway, and it seems to jive with the rest of the series. There are some sites that have attempted to explain the entire shebang so far; I don’t think it’s worth the trouble.

The presence of video cameras in Paranormal Activity 3 is weird. Dennis drags them everywhere, even when he’s simply watching other video clips or skulking around the house or having mundane conversations with other characters. The idea that Julie doesn’t find it the least bit off-putting that Dennis is filming her daughters 24/7 comes off funny. And to make it stranger, Julie doesn’t even seem to want to know what’s on the tapes (despite what the trailers misleadingly illustrate).

There are some bits that could’ve been neat, like the meshing of an oscillating fan with a camera, but the scares are wasted on jumpy moments that would frankly give anyone a start. Having us stare into a dimly-lit environment for a few minutes before suddenly popping something out is a way to hone in on the audience’s reflexes more than a way to play on legitimate fears.

What we have with Paranormal Activity 3 is the extension of a complicated plot that is supposed to flesh out some background. This movie feels distracted, introducing fresh motivations in an attempt to slog out a series that could’ve gone in a smarter direction and left us with more memorable, truly troubling questions. As it is, the film seems like a rush to get the cheapest scares out as quickly as possible.

A final note: aesthetically this movie is just dumb. Supposedly based on found footage from the late 80s that is viewed on VHS tapes, the film is in immaculate high-def condition. On top of that, the house is perfectly lit at all times and it is almost impossible to pick up on any vagueness when it comes to spooky happenings. Everything is captured with far too much precision. Dirtying the footage up a bit a la Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror would’ve made a major visual difference.

Trailer (a lot of what’s in this trailer isn’t in the movie):