Whether it was intentional or not, the fact the first 30 or so minutes of Paranormal Activity 3 are comprised of tedious and generic jump scares actually works in the film’s favor. Tedium soon leads to an effective final 30 minutes as the origin story to this supernatural franchise gets down to its most gnarliest. Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman created some effective and tense moments in their faux documentary Catfish in 2010 and as a result prove to be a solid duo to take over the Paranormal franchise following 2010’s lackluster second installment.
As a big fan of Oren Peli’s Paranormal Activity I was quite disappointed in the sequel, a film that showed little invention, relying on dogs and babies in peril to tell its story. Sure, they work, but it’s a storytelling method that plays on our weaker human emotions. To scare an audience with as little as possible is a different story. Dust falling an unseen figure, a burst of wind or a character running into an invisible figure is just plain creepy if you ask me. If you can’t see it, but you’re told it’s real, who’s to say it isn’t?
You can shut the areas of your imagination down that would otherwise allow you to accept the situation, but if you let your imagination run free you’re going to have a lot of fun and once again, I feel Paranormal Activity 3 is a film that must be seen in theaters.
Showing only brief glimpses from the first two films, Paranormal Activity 3 opens without any title screens, no “directed by” and not even a Paramount logo as we quickly move from 2005 to 2006 to all the way back to 1988 where we meet Julie (Lauren Bittner), the biological mother to Katie and Kristi Rey, the haunted sisters from the first two films. Here they are still quite young and Julie’s boyfriend Dennis (Chris Smith) has moved in and is a hit with the kids.
Dennis is also a wedding videographer and he’s obsessed with recording life around him. That said, with very little time wasted, what was going to be Dennis and Julie’s first sex tape ends up capturing an earthquake followed by a mysterious image on the overturned camera. Dennis begins hearing bumps in the girls’ room, one of them is talking to an imaginary figure she calls Toby prompting Dennis to begin documenting, setting up cameras all around the house.
Night after night weird things begin to happen, ramping up the tension and increasing in intensity leading up to a final act that really seals the deal. And if you think many of the scares have been ruined by the trailers, don’t worry; several of them aren’t even in the film. In fact, the entire scene from the first trailer isn’t in the film and the majority of the second trailer isn’t either.
The performances by the lead actors are standard based on what we’ve seen from the first two installments, Smith is a bit dry and Bittner appears to be reading her lines more often than not, but it works. The two young girls played by Chloe Csengery and Jessica Tyler Brown are quite good, but the added bonus is Dennis’ assistant Randy played by Dustin Ingram. Randy serves as something of a comic relief character, but not in a punch line delivery way, but more in a “this shit is getting real, but I’m going to stay cool so I can get out of here alive” kind of way. Just wait for the “Bloody Mary” scene and you’ll see what I mean.
The film, however, isn’t without its problems. As with all films of this sort you do begin to wonder why anyone would continue filming their own personal nightmare and not concern themselves more with the safety of their family. Considering it’s set in the ’80s, one thing that’s fortunately absent from Paranormal Activity 3 is the use any kind of built-in night vision settings on the camera, but then again that gives them one less reason to use the camera at all. I also grew extremely bored with the use of a makeshift oscillating camera that simply took too long to get to the point. Yet, the fact many of the scares in this film happen in the light makes me ignore most of these issues.
Paranormal Activity 3 also runs into the situation where you begin to think to yourself, “Just get out of the house!” I found it equally frustrating when one of the characters refuses to watch the videos. I’m sorry, but if you’re loved one is freaked out of their mind, saying the kids are in danger and suggesting you watch a video that proves it, you are going to watch that video. Granted, the way the rules are developed in this story, it wouldn’t matter if they left the house or watched the tape, considering this little ghost isn’t concerned with what you know or where you are.
For me, I’ve found the moments in this franchise when the characters see what has happened on the tapes just as freaky as when we see it firsthand. It’s a shared scare, something this franchise has done well. The Paranormal Activity films feed on the fact they are creating shared scares not only among the audience, but also with the characters. Any opportunity to continue that should be taken in my opinion.
Overall, this is a much better film than Paranormal Activity 2. It uses jump scares to set you at ease, believing that’s all you’re going to deal with and setting you up for legitimately creepy moments in the latter third. I’m not sure where they could take things from here, but I can only assume Paranormal Activity 4 is already in the outlining stages of production.
