FILM REVIEW Paranormal Activity 3

AMERA DOESN’T LIE Chloe Csengery and Jessica Tyler Brown star in Paranormal Activity 3.

Things that go bump in the night


Rowan Gallagher

John Carpenter’s ‘The Thing’ (1982) is one of the all-time-best horror thrillers to come out of Hollywood. The story of the film hinges on a plot that developed before the events that take place. In 2007, the studio decided that the back story needed to be told in full, and the result was Paranormal Activity, a poor knock off, a throw away film that failed to live up to the original.
The franchise has gone from strength to strength with each subsequent movie – each presented in the ‘found footage’ style. To turn $15,000 into a few hundred million dollars is a difficult thing on the best of days, especially if you intend to spend that $15,000 on making a cheap scary movie, but that is what the creator of Paranormal Activity has managed.
Paranormal 3 focuses on the two sisters, Katie and Kristi, who were possessed by demons in the first two films. However, this time the girls are children back in 1988.
For the third time, a male protagonist, this time named Dennis (Christopher Nicholas Smith), gets a notion to film the day to day life of his family after he suspects that there is something untoward happening in his home. The cameras are placed around the house in imaginative places and the angles chosen help frame the story.
On one of the first nights one of the girls begins to talk to her imaginary friend Toby who lives in the cupboard on camera and strange things begin to happen.



The slow build-up to a climactic finale is now a staple of the franchise and this instalment doesn’t disappoint the growing number of fans. The darkness of the family home at night is a tried and tested arena for the haunting, allowing the audience to picture themselves in the same situation. Squeaky door hinges and things that go bump in the night provide the ambient sound.
The creak of a floorboard and the unexplainable movement of a door tease the family as the haunting gets worse. Scares aside, the third instalment proves there can be humour in the madness with some well-timed laughs.
However, there have been some artistic liberties taken. The wide-screen shots and night vision on the cameras is unrealistic given the time in which the story is set, and the script writing tries to plaster over the cracks on a few occasions. That said, it is a liberty that needed to be taken to avoid Paranormal Activity suffering from the aspect ratio problems seen in the found-footage film Apollo 18.
It is clear to see that this film had a much bigger budget than the last, with some imaginative scares and effects. The actors for the final instalment are not as stilted as their previous counterparts and are mostly likeable, with the two girls giving a stellar performance for their ages.
Paranormal Activity 3 is really more of the same you may have seen in the previous films, but the techniques have been perfected; the characters are for the most part more believable; and the plot is tied up nicely in the end.
Although the activity appears to be over for now, there is still money to be made off this franchise. Don’t be surprised to see another chapter in the series in the near future – it’s hard to turn down another $100 million at the box office next Halloween.

Rating 7 out of 10