Truly Dreadful Film

Pretty Good

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Watch Paranormal Activity 3 if you want to fall asleep, not if you want to be frightened. This movie forces its storyline into the exact same framework as the previous two movies and it just seems ridiculous. Additionally, this slow, tedious movie constantly tries to prove that it takes place in the 80s - probably because it doesn't look or feel anything like the 80s. Plus, the few jump-out scares are not worth the wait. This franchise is on its deathbed and it needs to pass on.

This movie is very scary and creepy, even though its been years that I've watched it, its still in my head! The best movie of the series for sure, and if you are a horror movie fan you won't regret. Not like PA 1 and 2 this one has things going on the whole movie.

Minor plot spoilersI am not a fan of this series. The stories are too slow to build with long scenes of nothing and then the scare is minimal. This movie is the spoiler for the series as we find out from the subtitle "It runs in the family." We do get an explanation. This is a prequel filmed in high quality DVD using a VHS camera. The acting was better in this one. Lauren Bittner was convincing as Julie. In one scene she puts on a mask and scares the guys. She is so happy she got one over on them, she jumps around with bubbly joy. Also extremely realistic is young Kristi (Jessica Tyler Brown) who convinces me she has an imaginary friend named Captain Howdy, er ah Toby. Likewise child actor Chloe Csengery did an excellent job as Katie as she goes screaming across the room.There is a sex scene that is comical. Dennis (Christopher Nicholas Smith) starts out mouthing "wack-a-da, wack-a-da" porno music and as a romantic sort stampedes right to Julie's chest. There are some strange events going on in the house, so it gets wired for VHS tapes. Now as I recall the longest VHS tape setting was 6 hours (some were 8 hours) which means they would of had to been changed out frequently and viewed for paranormal activity with some scenes lasting for a second. With multiple cameras going 24/7...well you get the idea of how tedious and impracticable this becomes. In one scene the stationary VHS camera is looking at the entire girl's bedroom and then the next second it is focusing on Kristi's bed. While they used the amateur camera for a realistic effect, they didn't stay true to it, which made for a better movie. Maybe one day they will discover how real movies are made.What is not credible is the wife not believing what is going on and refusing to look at the evidence on film. They had to do this so they could keep the constant build up. Dennis filming everything with the camera at grandma's house didn't make much sense. At some point if you are being chased, you stop filming and run. If you are hiding and need to be quiet, you don't keep the camera on. The chase scene is hard to justify filming in all of these types of movies. I felt a little short changed on the ending.Like the other movies, it starts out slowly, but it doesn't sputter and grind its wheels like they did. This is my favorite of the three.F-bomb, no nudity, comical foreplay scene. Was that a 1993 Free Willy stuffed whale in this 1988 movie? Now that was really unexplained.

Why see the 'Paranormal Activity' films in the first place? Despite not being a fan of the found footage/video surveillance style of filming generally, the basic premise to begin with was quite interesting. Also wanted to see whether they lived up to the hype (both positive and negative, have always heard very mixed views and the divisiveness both ways have been quite extreme) and which side I'd fall under.After finally seeing them, after putting off seeing them for a while (mainly due to being behind with film watching and also being wary of the hype both extremes), to sum up in one word what my feelings on the 'Paranormal Activity' films are, it is indifference. Certainly don't have the vehement hatred some have for the films, nor do they strike me as masterpieces of the genre.Didn't care for the original 'Paranormal Activity', though there were things that were impressive, and liked the second even less, some effective moments but too far and between in a dull and repetitive second instalment. 'Paranormal Activity' is a different story. Actually in some weird way had high hopes for it, with the trailer it had it had potential to be the best film in the series. The film itself is sadly the anti-thesis of the trailer, with what was so good in the trailer weirdly not in the finished product, it felt like a completely different film altogether as others have understandably said. Do agree with those that say it's inferior to the first two, making pretty much all the mistakes of the second film and making even more flaws as well.'Paranormal Activity 3' is not irredeemable. There are two scares that come off well, the hair-raising Bloody Mary sequence and the jumping-out-of-one's-seat part with the babysitter. Some of the lighting is eerie and the film does pick up momentum in the second half when one is seriously considering bailing out.Something that never occurs to me to do when watching a film, being someone who believes in giving anything a fair chance and that anything that isn't watched all the way through shouldn't be commented upon, certainly not in the manner that occurs all too frequently on this site). Katie Featherston does her best though with fairly little to do.Unfortunately there is a lot wrong with 'Paranormal Activity 3'. One of the biggest problems is that it's dull and at worst even more of a slog than the second film, with a snail's pace in the first half and a lot of pointless downtime. Apart from two moments, the film to me just wasn't scary, there is not any brooding intensity or ominous foreboding and very little sense of dread or unsettling eeriness. Too much of it felt mundane, through the motions and even more too calculated than the second film.Katie Featherston aside, like with 'Paranormal Activity 2', the acting is either annoying or bland, not helped by characters that have very little to them or frustrate the viewer with truly stupid and sometimes borderline illogical decision making. The acting and line delivery for the children couldn't have been more way off. The camera work is still rather gimmicky and annoyingly repetitive, while the dialogue especially in the downtime/filler moments (which are too many and either serve no point or incredibly dull) is enough to make one cringe.All too often, the storytelling is thin and repetitive, with a initially interesting idea that has now gotten fatigued and stale. The downtime moments feel little more than filler that easily could have trimmed and it would have made the pacing much tauter. The direction occasionally shines but is mostly flat. Also agree on being hugely let down by the ending. Just when things started picking up, it all comes crashing down towards the end, with things becoming unintentionally funny and ridiculous and then it just ends with a lot unresolved.Overall, pretty weak. 3/10 Bethany Cox