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The experience of watching the Paranormal Activity films one after the other is like watching a story's layers gradually being peeled away, as more and more elements of the narrative are slowly revealed to the fervent fans who have been following this franchise from its beginning. I completely disagree with people who think that this franchise is an exercise in "rinse, repeat." That would be the case if, like so many other horror franchises, the Paranormal Activity films each consisted of entirely different sets of characters, all of whom went through the same motions of having their houses haunted. But this particular franchise offers the story of a family with a particularly eerie history of being stalked by an ultra-persistent demon. The fact that all of these films have focused on gradually expanding the story of these two sisters makes it much easier for one to get engrossed in it and to be curious as to what will ultimately happen to them. In fact, the only strong objection I have towards Paranormal Activity 3 is that, while it does an effective job in the first five minutes at tying what happened in the first two films to what's going to happen in this one, the same can't be said for the last five minutes. The ending of Paranormal Activity 2 was brilliant because it picked up the first film's storyline right where it had left off, showed us what happened next, and THEN established yet another hook for us to look forward to. But sadly, as I'll discuss a little more later, Paranormal Activity 3 simply ends, without tying its conclusion to the events of its two predecessors, and without continuing where they had left off. As unsatisfying as that ending may be, though, there's no denying the fact that the 80 or so minutes that precede it are bone-chilling as hell. It has been a long time since I've wanted to cover my eyes during a horror film NOT from being disgusted by the blood and guts spewing all over the place, but rather, from being morbidly afraid that something will suddenly show up on the screen and scare me to death. Not unlike the two films that came before it, Paranormal Activity 3 is a terrifying motion picture and an expertly crafted exercise in subtle build-up of tension.
Kristi (Sprague Grayden) is in her late twenties and she recently became pregnant. It's 2005, and she's moving into a house with her husband, and her sister Katie (Katie Featherston) is helping them move in. When they start unloading some of the boxes, Kristi and Katie find some home videos of when they were little. They had no idea that these videos had been conserved. Some time later, Kristi's house gets mysteriously ransacked, with no valuables stolen, EXCEPT for those home videos. As we learned through the events of the first two films, a demon starts haunting the house soon after the ransack takes place. Reference is made to the fact that there's the possibility that the demon is interested in taking "the first-born male" of this family, which would be the case with Kristi's baby boy. Eventually, Kristi gets possessed by the demon. In a desperate state, Kristi's husband seeks help as to how he can get rid of the demon, and unfortunately, he discovers that the only way to do it is by transferring the demon over to a blood relative of Kristi's. Since he wants to save his wife, he goes through with it, and soon after, Kristi is perfectly fine, but the same can't be said of her sister Katie, who has now been taken by the demon. In her state of possession, Katie goes to Kristi's house, kills both Kristi and her husband, and steals Kristi's baby. Paranormal Activity 3 focuses largely on showing us what was in those tapes that mysteriously disappeared from Kristi's house. The tapes date back to 1988, when Kristi and Katie were little girls (now played by Jessica Tyler Brown and Chloe Csengery, respectively). The two girls live in a house with their mom, Julie (Lauren Bittner) and her boyfriend Dennis (Christopher Nicholas Smith). During the first two films, we always heard bits and pieces about how Kristi and Katie remember having been haunted by something when they were kids, and there was also mention of the fact that their house burnt down at one point. But the impression one got during the first two films was that these two women either didn't remember those events very well, or that they simply didn't want to talk about them. At one point during the second film, the two of them were alone in a room, and Kristi tried to start engaging Katie about the subject, but Katie responded "I don't wanna talk about it" and that was that. Paranormal Activity 3 is the opportunity for us to find out about these horrific, ostensibly forgotten events.
If you've seen either of the first two films (or both), you already know whether or not you have the patience for this. The scares in Paranormal Activity 3 emerge slowly, but surely. Yes, it's the same formula of having cameras set up around the house, but this particular movie adds a few nifty touches, not least of which is the utterly brilliant idea of having one of the cameras attached to a fan, which means that the camera will gradually move from one side to another. This is milked to perfection in several scenes in which you'll literally be on the edge of your seat wondering what you'll see the next time that the camera moves towards a particular side of the house. The room in which the two girls sleep has one of those miniature doors that leads to one of those cavernous little rooms in which toys are generally stored, but, as you'll imagine, in this movie, that small, dark room proves to be a lot less inviting. As I had said in my reviews of the first two films, the horror you experienced from the first movie came from the gradual development of tension, whereas the second one banked more on jump scares. I dare say that this third movie does a nice job at coalescing the two. It makes terrific use of situations in which one person is walking through hallways or walking down stairs with the constant threat of something terrible emerging at any moment. Scary as hell.
Something that surprised me a lot about Paranormal Activity 3 is how good a job it does at actually inserting humor into the proceedings, without letting any of it become ridiculous. There are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments to be found here, either during or after the scares. There's a scene in which, much to the chagrin of the two characters involved, a nice round of foreplay gets interrupted. There's a hilarious moment in which, after a fake-out scare, a character laughs at himself for having gotten scared so easily, sits on the toilet, and another character makes a remark about the appropriateness of the spot he chose to sit on. After playing a game of "Bloody Mary," one character's attempt to "keep his cool" in front of a kid (so as to not look weak) is worthy of a heap of laughs. Oh, and then there's the line "She got blown in the face" (lol), which you'll definitely understand better once you hear it in the context of the scene. One scene that seemed to combine scares and laughter perfectly (at least for the audience with whom I saw the film) is one in which a character's hair suddenly gets pulled upwards; the moment may initially cause you to jump because of how unexpected it is, but it'll be hard not to laugh at the ridiculousness of it once it's over. These are all good things - one needs relief after being so deeply stung by a moment of horror.
One objection I'd had towards the first two films (particularly the first one) was that it felt a little unrealistic that these people didn't just get up and leave and head over to a hotel or a relative's house. The films made it clear that the demon would continue to hunt these people no matter WHERE they went, but it seemed like it was important to actually show that. The makers of Paranormal Activity 3 took note of that issue, and came up with a terrific way of resolving it. During the final act, the family heads over to a different house, but... well, let's just say the level of creepiness and tension just becomes even worse. The final few minutes, in which a character is walking through the labyrinthine house, slowly discovering things that nobody would ever want to discover, are horrifying, and reactions along the lines of "Please make it stop already" aren't unwarranted.
As I said, unfortunately, as scary as the last act is, the way it ultimately ends won't necessarily prove satisfying to those who have been following the franchise from the beginning and are interested in knowing the fate of the characters who were still alive in 2006, at the end of the second film. This won't prove to be a problem for people who haven't seen the other movies (or for people who've simply gone to see all of them, and just want the scares, without really caring about the chronology of these people's story), but it doesn't satisfy the rest of us. When Paranormal Activity 2 ended, I wanted to start clapping immediately at how brilliantly these filmmakers had tied the first two films and how amazingly well they had set things up for the next film. It's too bad we can't say the same here. To make matters a little more disappointing, despite the fact that the first two films made plenty of references to "the fire" that had taken place when Katie and Kristi were little girls, we don't see that plot line come into play here. Of course, this all leads one to assume that perhaps a fourth film is being planned, but even if that's the case, that doesn't stop me from feeling quasi dissatisfied with how this particular entry concluded. Oh, and we've also lost the captions that usually appear at the beginning and at the end (the captions at the beginning always had Paramount Pictures "thanking" the families of the deceased, whereas the final captions always established the hook for the next film - but it doesn't happen here).
All in all, though, the conclusion to be drawn is that the first two films were companion pieces that complemented one another, whereas Paranormal Activity 3 is a prologue that, unfortunately, doesn't end up being more than that. The great news is, though, that, prior to making that disappointing decision, it's a decisively terrifying prologue. I don't see a lot of horror movies nowadays... it's not because I don't like the genre. I love it. It's because I prefer being scared rather than being grossed out, and unfortunately, most of the recent output has provided the exact opposite of what I'm looking for. My appreciation for the Paranormal Activity films doesn't have so much to do with how "realistic" or "unrealistic" they may be. Anyone who's not an idiot knows that, as much as they're being dressed up as "found footage" films, these things aren't real. But that doesn't stop the approach from having a profoundly frightening effect on me. The effectiveness of the horror genre shouldn't depend on how easily someone can be shocked by cheap images, but rather, it should hinge entirely on how well the film can penetrate the mind of the audience member and awaken his/her fears. The Paranormal Activity franchise may not be perfect, but I'm not ashamed to tell you that, for three years in a row, no other cinematic effort has come even close to making me lose any sleep at night.
7/10
