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If you’re looking for a scary movie to kick off Halloween weekend, Paranormal Activity 3 might be perfect to get you in the mood for scares.
The wildly successful prequel opened last weekend at $54 million, with only a $5 million production budget, making it one of the top horror movie debuts ever. However, it has so far been received with mixed reviews, earning only a “C+” on CinemaScore.
The movie is set in 1988, eighteen years before the events of the first two movies, and follows sisters Katie (Chloe Csengery) and Kristi (Jessica Tyler Brown) as they are growing up.
When the young family moves into a new home, Kristi begins interacting with a vaguely threatening invisible friend named Toby. While her mother, Julie (Lauren Bittner), writes it off as a phase that will pass within the week, her boyfriend, Dennis (Christopher Nicholas Smith), becomes suspicious when he starts to catch strange occurrences in the house on video around the same time.
Falling under the “found footage” subgenre, Paranormal Activity 3 is presented entirely as home videos taken by Dennis, a videographer by trade who thankfully knows how to use a tripod, unlike many of the nauseating hand-held horror films of recent years. Complete with grayscale night footage and a time stamp, the film maintains an every-day feel that draws the paranormal back to plausible reality. This technique leaves audience members feeling uncomfortable even when they walk out of the theater, making them wary of their own closets at night.
The actual action in the movie is slow and understated, but the slow suspense building is what makes Paranormal Activity 3 effective as a horror film. Watching it is reminiscent of a children’s game, as you scrutinize each frame for the “thing that doesn’t belong.”
The tension is, of course, interrupted by a few moments that will make you jump, even if you’re expecting them (or scream, as did some overactive audience members). This scare tactic is in fact mixed with a fair amount of humor, though, adding a surprisingly light-hearted feel and likability to the characters that is unusual for the genre.
It’s not until the last scene of the film that things turn violent, as the audience has been expecting for over an hour. The thin thread of a plotline is resolved – supposedly in such a way that it leads believably into the first movie – and the movie ends on a predictably foreboding note.
While not a particularly original film, Paranormal Activity 3 is a fun scare for the season. It will be interesting to see how dramatically sales drop after Halloween weekend – but even so, after this opening Paramount will no doubt be milking the franchise for several movies to come. Perhaps we have a new Saw on our hands, and we can look forward to a Paranormal Activity 7 by 2015.
