That the Paranormal Activity series has stuck comfortably close to its formula is no surprise. Sticking to formula is generally how long-running series succeed: look at Final Destination, or Saw, or Halloween or Friday the 13th or A Nightmare on Elm Street or "Law & Order." The third entry in the wildly successful series wisely doesn't cheat on its gimmick: the entire film is presented as found footage, edited together after the fact.
The first film, directed by first-timer Oren Peli, was a brilliant shiver-inducing piece of work. It was fascinating in its simplicity; though we never believed for a second that it was authentic, each scene was unquestionably real. For part 2, director Tod Williams (The Door in the Floor) effectively guided the film through the pitfalls of its pop culture identity, and balanced the framing device of the original with a few tried-and-true horror movie formula tricks to make it an entertaining thrill ride, even if it lacked the raw power of the original.
In Paranormal Activity 3, the gimmick begins to get just a little bit tired. Peli made a huge splash by setting most of his film at night, with the characters all asleep and one stationary camera recording all the devious things that they don't see. Williams continued the trend in part 2 by opening the footage up to the whole house, with three security cameras doing the same duty.
Here, the contribution of directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman is to set the film in the 1980s, with several VHS cameras recording all that happens. It's an interesting premise, since the limits in technology prevent the characters from recording more than 6 hours at a time, viewing and editing requires a great deal more work, and tripods are clunky and can easily tip over. The directors do just enough with this idea that we wish they had done more: videotapes always seem to be in plentiful supply, even though the characters use 4 per camera per day. Though the movie features a constant "retro" timestamp at the bottom right, it still appears to have been shot on digital video in widescreen; if it had been shot on actual VHS, it might have come with an eerier found-footage atmosphere, kind of like the 16mm black-and-white camera in The Blair Witch Project.
We meet Katie and Kristi, the two sisters we got to know in the previous two films. Here, they're young children, played by Chloe Csengery and Jessica Tyler Brown. They live fairly happily with their mom Julie (Lauren Bittner) and mom's boyfriend Dennis (Chris Smith). Then Kristi begins talking with an invisible friend she calls Toby, who warns her not to tell anyone of their conversations.
The quiet nighttime scenes, so scarily foreshadowing in the first film, are perfunctory and inert here. The usual bumps in the night take place. Light fixtures sway, doors squeak shut, bedsheets ripple. Something appears to be coming from Kristi and Katie's bedroom closet. In the middle of the night Kristi gets up and talks to the closet door, which is just behind the camera and to the left. It does not say much for the intelligence of the characters in this movie that after viewing the footage each day, nobody thinks to point the camera at the damn closet.
By nature of the movie's premise, it still comes preloaded with a bit of urgency. Since it's supposedly been edited down from many hours of found footage, there is the sense that every scene has a reason for being shown, which calls the audience's attention to all parts of the screen at all times. The movie revisits the now-famous device in which the timestamp speeds up and then slows down to signify that something important is about to happen. This is a surefire way to raise tension, but the series has used it so many times that it has barely any effect anymore.
Still, the movie does deliver the shocks it promises. The directors, who previously made the documentary-style Catfish, have mastered the first-person format well enough so that we still find terror in what we don't see. They find a brilliant device in the oscillating camera, constructed by Dennis from an oscillating fan, which pans from the living room to the kitchen with the ostensible purpose of showing us what's happening in both rooms, but with the ulterior purpose of concealing what's happening in the other room at the time. This paves the way for a few wonderful scares, my favorite involving a crafty babysitter.
Also, unlike the ultimately disappointing part 2, this film spends comparatively little time on plot and, like the original, devotes most of its time to setting up the tension. Though there is a backstory about demons and witches, it is only a McGuffin and the movie mostly dismisses it in favor of suspense. It also ramps up the tension considerably toward the end, leaving us with a third act which is, if nothing groundbreaking, appropriately spooky and satisfying.
Though Paranormal Activity 3 still manages to keep the popular franchise alive, the wrinkles are beginning to show. Both sequels have been significantly less tight than the original, and have been regressing into horror movie cliche. Take, for example, the repeated use of the It's Only A device. A character hears a noise, goes to check it out, and a startling BANG! Turns out it was only the wife, or the kid, or the cat, or the dog. Since the footage in Paranormal Activity 3 was allegedly found and edited into shape by a third party, we have to assume this person was thinking, "I know there are horrible things to come, but I think I'll throw in this part where it was only the wife, just for giggles."
** 1/2 out of ****
