I remember seeing the comercials for the very first "Paranormal Acitvity" film, and boy did that make me want to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge without a bungie cord in excitment! A film that is so scary that people all around the world are requesting it to be brought to their theaters? This is just too good to be true!.. and to my sadness, it was to good to be true. Even though I'm reviewing the third and final (but not really) sequel in the series, I'll be talking about them all collectively, and at the same time trying to remove the temptation of putting a gun to my head. The entire story started with this healthy looking couple wanting to document all the creepy noises going on by recording throughout the night, and through the recordings they capture many supernatural phenomenons. This makes them oddly happy for a short time, until the demon/ghost gets anal and starts slapping them around while messing with their furniture. Personally I don't think the demon is as evil as everyone thinks he is. I think he is most likely a 8-year old loser child who tries to hard to get everyone to focus on him, and when they don't give him the attention he needs, he proceeds to pull them from the bed and drag them down the stairs... You know kids right? The third film goes even deeper into the past of sisters Ali and Katie, as you get to see them experience supernatural terrors with their parents, and their grandma who looks as though she just escaped a violent Amish community.
The Good:
After hearing that the "Paranormal Activity" series scared the crap out of everyone, I decided to pull up my huggies and give them a try. Even though the film doesn't scare you out of your pants right off the bat, it does place in your mind some crazy images that will affect you at night. So word to the wise, when this 8-year old child of a demon wants to show you something, or play a game of twister, you better do what he wants or he'll go all "Children of the Corn" on your hiney and start pulling you out of bed!
The Bad:
You know that feeling you get when someone talks something up like it's the second coming, and then you find out it's the biggest disapointment since the invention of adult diapers; Do they really hold everything? This series was a similar kind of disappointment. I brought myself in to the living room ready to watch this movie and prepared to be scared, and with an extra pair of pants for when I soil myself, but alas the soiling did not happen, and instead I fell asleep, dreaming of being a contestant on Iron Chef. I'm not going to lie there are some parts of the series (especially in the third one) that have some legitimate scary moments as I said earlier, but the problem is they usually happen in the LAST 3 MINUTES!!! That is the beef I have with most of these "Found Footage" movies, because you're guarenteed complete boredom for at least an hour and a half before things start getting interesting; You better bring some knitting or toe-nail clippers into the movie with you so you don't fall asleep. I'm also tired of people now thinking that if you make a Horror film with a budget of only a few dollars, then it's bound to be a success, because that is about as true as Michael Jackson's nose. This series has proved to me that sometimes the lower budget a movie has, the less interesting it gets.
The Ugly:
I recommend people to see this movie, but only so these people can finally say "I saw it!" Maybe my problem is I assumed this series would be like god's gift to mankind, because that's how good people were making it seem, so when I actually saw it I became sad as if my dog had been run over. Like the Hooters Billboard once said, "Set your standards low, so you'll be pleasantly suprised." Maybe we should all take this advice from the wise girls of Hooters and use it, at the same time ignoring the fact they work at Hooters because of unresolved daddy issues at home.
2 out of 5
P.S. Here is the poster for the upcoming sequel!
This is proof that movie trailers can lie to you. When I saw an awesome commercial for Home
Sweet Home on another film I was psyched, because I remember seeing that movie
at the video store and thought to myself, “dang girl! I dun can rent that this weekend”, so I
did. I kept getting confused as to why
the movie wasn’t as good as the trailer, and eventually it led me to a state of
denial where I would tell myself “the movie is going to get better… Now!”, and
I would repeat that up until the credits started rolling. It should be obvious by now that this is a
terrible movie, and I am much more likely to test pepper spray on my eyes than
view this piece of crap… actually no I wont, that sounds terrible. The story is simple in that a young woman on
the verge of being bankrupt moves out to a cabin located somewhere in the Utah
desert, and while there she receives a visit from a couple nut jobs. That’s the first thing this movie got wrong
is the bad guys, to be quite frank they weren’t even that evil, and if anything they
were such amateurs that I would have invited them into my home for hot coco and
not fear that they’re going to shawshank me. I feel partly the only reason they became sociopathic towards our heroine is because she was some-kind-of-stupid.
I love myself a good low budget Horror film, but that doesn’t mean that they’re
all good. More often then not, many of those low budget Horror films are huge letdowns, like when a brother stares at a hot girl walking down the street while he's driving, and once he passes her, he sees that she's a brother herself!
