Genre: Horror
Directors: Henry Joost & Ariel Schulman
Plot: Five years after the events of PA2, a family starts having strange occurrences when Katie and a mysterious boy move in across the street from them.
The gist: At this point, the Paranormal Activity films have lost their freshness and merely using the found footage technique to depict scares just isn't working that well now.
The stillness of a camera recording the goings on while everyone is asleep may still have some scare factor, but this fourth instalment kinda ruins the proceedings by not only repeating old tricks (stuff moving around by itself) but also featuring rather silly characters as the victims.
The one thing that the directors did differently from the film's previous directors is the use of laptop cameras instead of standard cameras to record the goings on. It's smart in a way, and the use of infrared for the hall shots were cool too. But it's not enough to make this better than what came before.
The good: Kathryn Newton puts in a convincing performance as main protagonist Alex, who like the previous films' protagonists, have to make others believe something weird is happening. Katie Featherston is still creepy in a way, though the idea of her being exceptionally stealthy is still unexplained.
The bad: Alex's parents are pretty dumb in my opinion, same as the non-believers from the earlier instalments. Some of the weird stuff that happens were just as stupid (the knife scene comes to mind). And like all PA films, there's always someone running with a camera recording when the shit hits the fan. I know it's so the audience can follow through, but it still doesn't make sense.
Verdict: Definitely losing its momentum compared to how the first PA began. There's more of these films next year, so they better step up, or just stop already. (2.5/5)
No comments:
Post a Comment