By all logic this movie shouldn’t work. We’re on our third Paranormal Activity now and while I thoroughly enjoyed the first two, they’re essentially the same film. The formula’s just not as fresh as it was two years ago. At some point the gimmick’s got to wear off... right?
You won’t find many surprises this time around, but Paranormal Activity 3 still does what the franchise has always done extremely well, and that’s creep the hell out of people. It’s tense, tightly plotted, legitimately funny at some points – it may not be perfect but it’s a far a cry from what you generally see out of the third sequel in a horror franchise.
And that’s probably because Paranormal Activity has figured out a secret that few of its contemporaries have:true horror comes more from what you don’t see than what you do. A subtle monster is a scarier monster. It’s much more terrifying to watch an object move on its own than it is to watch a murderer torture his victims. That unknown presence plays with the senses and keeps you guessing as to how and when it will strike next.
Paranormal Activity 3 does have some diminishing returns however. Once again we’re being treated to a prequel and if you’ve seen the previous two films then the ending of this one won’t be much of a shock to you. There’s also the familiar problem of why any of this is being filmed at all. The movie is set in the 80s, and last time I checked, most families from that era only owned one video camera, if any, and they were big bulky devices. While the screenwriters do a semi-decent job of explaining all this away, there are at least a few instances where you’ll wonder why a character is filming in that moment.
The mythology of the series gets a little bit sillier in this installment as well. Without ruining too much, the explanation as to why these girls are being haunted pretty much boils down to one of those stock horror movie clichés involving a deal with the devil and so forth. The ending was so familiar I could have sworn I’d watched the same scene in last year’s The Last Exorcism, a movie ironically capitalizing on the success of the first Paranormal Activity’s found footage premise.
Really though, Paranormal Activity has never been about why its victims are being haunted, just that they are, and for my money it’s still one of the creepier horror franchises out there. The third installment may not break the mould, but it still delivers the scares the series is known for. That should be enough to please most of its long-time fans.
