Halloween Horror Movie Month: Paranormal Activity 3 (2011)

This family should just stop filming anything.

A malign and murderous spirit continues to dwell within a San Diego home. Hoping to catch photo evidence of Bloody Mary, the residents soon become victims in their own horror film.

The ‘Paranormal Activity‘ series has been going on for 3 years now, with each one coming out on Halloween and not really ever disappointing. It’s sort of like a Halloween tradition and once they stop churning these films out every year, were going to have films like ‘The Last Exorcism‘ coming back for more and more sequels. NOOOOOO!

When the plans for this sequel/prequel were already announced, and the main people behind this film would be Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, who did ‘Catfish‘, I was kind of skeptical but also intrigued by what they could bring to the table. Their first feature was a big-time play on the audience as to what we thought was real and fake, and I think the choice of these guys was a great idea because they actually do bring a lot more.

The scares start out the same, with little things happening here and there, until one night where they have a baby-sitter come over and it just takes everything to the next level. This is exactly what I wanted this film to be because so much crazy shit happens that when it was all over, I just looked at my friends and all of the other people around me, and everybody was just practically dumb-founded and shocked by what we were seeing up on the screen. Almost every single scene leading up to the big scare has this great deal of tension that honestly had my knees shaking at a 100 mph and my fingers covering my ears. It’s some pretty freaky stuff as usual but there’s also things here that are a lot more cool looking than I actually expected.

Another reason this film works is because there’s also a lot more danger with this film. Whenever you have little kids in horror films, it’s always scary but this time these kids are in complete and utter danger with me actually not being able to watch at points because it was getting so tense. I think the directors eff with us enough to the point of where we know what’s going to happen next, but instead play with us and give us something else totally unexpectedly cool that they end up doing what the ghost is doing to this family: toying with them. Bastards!

I also have to give a lot of props to this film for making these trailers that were totally nothing like the film at all. When I saw the numerous trailers for this film I felt like I knew all the scenes going in, but when I got there probably about 1 and a half of the scenes that were in the trailer, were actually in the film, so therefore the scares were totally shocking and this is how you should always advertise your horror films no matter what.

My only problem with this film is that I do feel like they should have explained what in the hell happened to the dad after all. I thought it was a little strange how they never explained what exactly happened to the daddy of these girls and why this chick was just left with them after all. Was the dad killed too? Did he leave? Was it a divorce? I don’t know but then again, I smell sequel…..or prequel….or whatever the hell you wanna call it…

The characters in this film aren’t perfectly rounded out but we do care for them, especially the stepfather Dennis. This guy isn’t a real douche bag like all of the other males in these films have been and instead he actually acts like a regular human-being, rather than how a horror cliche actually would. He’s also very funny and very proactive like any person would be in something as crazy and creepy as this and that’s probably why I liked him a bit more than Micah.

I still think that the series has another film in its system somewhere before its totally past-death but to be truly honest I had so much fun here, probably more fun I had with this than I did with the 2nd one. The film should probably end on a note that answers all the questions that it brought up so very very much here and in the 2nd one, and hopefully will keep on scaring the ish out of me as well.

Consensus: Paranormal Activity 3 is basically the same film as every single other one that came before it, with a lot more insane scares, questions brought up, and more tension than ever before thanks to the new directors on-hand.

9/10=Full Pricee!!