Paranormal Activity 3 – Review

Just “Found Footage” of a Superior Sequel In Paranormal Activity 3

I am happy to report that I didn’t scream like some audience members of the packed midnight show I attended. However, I did spend a good majority of Paranormal Activity 3 with a knot in my stomach and a hand over my eyes!

PA3 opens with the familiar faces of Katie and Kristi (played once again by Katie Featherston and Sprague Grayden). Katie brings over a box of old family VHS tapes to Kristi’s house for storage. Soon after, Kristi’s home is “invaded” (from the beginning of PA2) and the VHS tapes go missing. This footage then takes us back to 1988, with Katie and Kristi as children living with their mother Julie and her boyfriend Dennis. When Kristi begins talking to an “imaginary friend” named Toby, a familiar weirdness hits the household.

PA3 is shot in the same “found footage” style of the first two films and though it’s the third go round, manages even more chills than the previous entries. Dennis is a wedding videographer, so when the activity begins, he sets up static cameras in their bedroom and the children’s room, picking up daily routines and the occasional “something” that goes bump in the night. He then examines the footage on his 1988 state-of-the-art editing deck in the garage (and videotapes himself doing so). The creepiest clips come from the cam propped to the head of an oscillating fan, giving it the smoothest, most unnerving camera motion we’ve gotten in all three films. The movement is repetitive and doesn’t always capture “activity”, which keeps us on edge. But when it does…

I’m not sure why the men in the Paranormal family feel the need to videotape everything (especially when in mortal danger), but directors Ariel Shulman and Henry Joost (of 2010’s Catfish) suspend my disbelief and I’m caught up on the terror ride. The pair bumps up the suspense a few more notches than the last two PA’s and to great effect. Shots of the bedrooms with the family sleeping (and sometimes empty) are held for uncomfortable amounts of time while our eyes search the frame for anything out of the ordinary. Other shots begin and smack us with “activity” right away. There really is no pattern of beats to follow or anticipate. Anything can happen at any time.

I bought all the characters as real people. Lauren Bittner is convincing as the girls’ mom Julie and Christopher Nicholas Smith plays Dennis, a likeable soul dedicated to protecting his new family. Dustin Ingram provides comic relief as Randy, Dennis’s partner in videography, who suffers bloody scratches from the entity. Child actors Chloe Csengery and Jessica Tyler Brown’s as the young Katie and Kristi are the most chilling performances of the series thus far. Katie is repeatedly victimized, including having her hair pulled by the entity in midair. And when Kristi speaks to “Toby” in the dark corner of her bedroom, I could feel the chill run up my spine.

The mystery of Paranormal Activity 3 (as well as the other two films) unfolds at a suspenseful, satisfying pace, answering questions as it asks new ones. The films’ fractured timeline is used effectively to make us aware that footage is “out there” and we’re only seeing what the unknown “finders” of the footage want us to see. With so much of this movie being spot on, I wished at times that the footage had been shot on real VHS to up the ante on authenticity. But that never detracted from this third, most satisfying Paranormal ride.

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