I know I said in my last post that I was going to wait until the film’s official opening on Friday to post my thoughts on Paranormal Activity 3, but I feel like I want to talk about the film now.
The film is an origin story of sorts and tells the story of the central characters of Katie and Kristi’s first experience with a demonic presence during childhood. This give the movie a nice retro feel, since it’s supposed to appear like it’s on old VHS tapes.
The camera overload from the second film was corrected and this film only uses three cameras for the night scenes – two for the bedrooms and a camera attached to a fan that rotates back and forth between the living room and kitchen. It is that latter camera that actually helps with some of the suspense, since it takes quite a few seconds for the camera to move from one end to another.
After a second film was somewhat light on (new) scares, compared to the first film, I’m happy to say that Paranormal Activity 3 is quite frightening. While I was annoyed at the previous film’s efforts to explain everything, I just ran with similar outlandish revelations in this film, since the results were still quite terrifying.
If there is one complaint I have with the film is that there is a lot more hand-held camerawork in this film. This is only really a complaint, since I often get motion-sickness from shaky camerawork like this. However, a hand-held camera plays a major role in the film’s climax (hands-down the most terrifying part of the film) and it ends up being really effective.
Overall, I feel that Paranormal Activity 3 delivered the goods. While I still feel that the original film is a unique film that cannot be topped, this film is successful in find new and terrifying ways for you to leave the theatre with an uneasy feeling.
9/10
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