Paranormal Activity 3

 I owe y'all a sincere appology.  My Grandmother has gone in for surgery and follow up appointments a lot in the last few weeks and I'm afraid that has caused to to shirk my responsibilities to my readers. This week a simple movie review and maybe next week I'll indulge y'all in something larger.

I am a big fan of the haunted house genre of film. My favorite horror movie right now happens to be Insidious. This film is brought to you by the same twisted minds that brought you the Paranormal Activity series and the Saw franchise. This is what brings me to this week’s topic: Paranormal Activity 3. Yes, I went and saw it and yes, I actually enjoyed it.

At first I was leery. I love the PA series as they have managed to bottle fear and project it onto a screen, but honestly how many times can we truly be scared by something we never really see? In this writer’s case, three times. The first PA movie I saw I was more than impressed with the realism of the situation. The film is Blair Witch Project in its execution without being hokey. The shaky camera work and amateurish acting at first had me very concerned. However as the story unfolded I was very pleased and impressed by how real the entire situation seemed. The second installment brings another piece into the puzzle. No one (in my opinion) is haunted by a demonic presence for no reason. Like any good sequel (and set up for a third) it also left us with more questions than answers. Here enters Paranormal Activity 3.

The hallmark of all of these films is the subtlety with which the problem (i.e. the haunting) is discovered. I can see myself in the near future using this film as a vehicle to properly explain the concept of dramatic irony.  Here we see the heroines of the first two films as children and watch the haunting that follows them initially enter into their lives. Many fun devices are used from bedroom sheets (I can’t help but quote Beetleguise in this moment), the Bloody Mary game, to children’s imaginary friends.

Overall I wouldn’t call this the “scariest” of the three films but I would call it the most unnerving. The last fifteen minutes of this film left a serious, indelible mark on my psyche.