Paranormal Activity 3

Director(s) - Henrey Joost (Catfish: The TV Show, Secret Headquarters) and Ariel Schulman (Catfish: The TV Show, Secret Headquarters)

Starring - Chloe Csengery (Deadtime Stories, The Good Doctor), Jessica Tyler Brown (NCIS, Hawthorne), and Christopher Nicholas Smith (Wild Bitch!, Storks)

Release Date - 2011

Genre - Horror

Tagline - "Discover how the activity began"

Format - Bluray (Personal Collection) (Screener)

Rating (out of 5):

     I’ve watched television series and film franchises previously that I didn’t like but I was able to sit through them and hammer out a review in a decent time frame. However, when I started this Paranormal Activity journey, I didn’t expect to dread writing reviews like I do now. The first two films were some of the worst films I’ve watched and reviewed to date which made me not look forward to the following installments. I just didn’t have the drive to dig into the third film right away so after a small break I decided to dig into the third installment. 

      The film takes place in 1988 when the sisters from the first two films were just kids. Their father is a videographer and decided to film his family when he notices that there are strange occurrences happening around them. He decides not to tell his wife right away but when things continuously get sinister he decides to finally tell her where he learns about demonology and a tale about a witches coven that force women into having male children to sacrifice.

     Paranormal Activity 3 is the first film in the franchise to not focus on as much on the found footage angle as previous films. Instead, it follows a story first before adding the found footage aspect. Sure, the found footage part does feel over used and drags the story down dramatically but it’s no where near as bas as the first two films. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll never subject myself to this torture again but I would pick it over the previous two entries. The acting in this one is very similar to the first two films. The film is over flowing with small talk that feels forced and extremely awkward. The cast are fully dedicated to their roles, but the dialogue and character interactions is so weird to watch. This is typical of found footage films and this series really focuses on those tropes and clichés. The story for this one is a little more elaborate than previous installments but it still only touches upon the basics instead of exploring it like a standard film. If you cut out all the small talk and pointless scenes you would be greeted with a film that may run around 20 minutes. It does give us more than normal but it doesn’t give us enough. I liked the demon aspect along with the first born son aspect introduced in the previous film and explored subtly here. Finally, the film has some jump scares and cheap visual effects but for those looking for blood will be very disappointed. The visuals looked good and fit the film but the jump scares can be seen from a mile away. Overall, Paranormal Activity 3 is an improvement over the first two films but the cleanest turd is still a turd. I highly recommend skipping this one.