Ever since the first Paranormal Activity film was released in 2009, Paramount has followed up with a sequel every October to coincide with Halloween. After seeing each film in years past, I would think to myself, "There isn't any way that the film-makers can come out with another one. This is already good enough as it is." For the first two sequels, I was gladly proven wrong, and each sequel succeeded in topping the one that came before it. But then, the fourth movie happened.
Paranormal Activity 4 has set the franchise back in its quality of scares, and it looks like the disadvantages of needing to rush a movie for it to meet the usual October deadline has officially caught up to it. The two directors from the third film, Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost, return to bring us the fourth installment. The only scary, and unexpected, thing about this movie is how Schulman and Joost could go from making the most frightening installment in the PA mythology to making the least frightening installment. It could be one of the most significant downgrades in between films of a series in the last few years.
The film takes place in November 2011, five years after the events of PA2, while the other movies take place in reverse chronological order. This direct sequel focuses on a Nevada family with a daughter, Alex (Kathryn Newton), her younger brother, Wyatt (Aiden Lovekamp), and their parents, played by Alexondra Lee and Stephen Dunham. One night as Alex is Skyping with her boyfriend, Ben (Matt Shively), she notices an ambulance outside of the house across the street from them, which belongs to Katie (Katie Featherston). Although the family has never met her, or her son Robbie (Brady Allen), they believe them to be mother and son. We, however, know him to be her nephew Hunter, who was abducted by Katie at the end of the second film. As Robbie is taken in by the family as his "mom" is at the hospital, the family begins to experience some spooky (or not spooky, if you're the audience) happenings in their house, which may have to do with their new guest and a demonic spirit he might have brought with him.
The acting, at least for me, was never the main thing to critique in these films. It's not that the acting is bad; the films all have the typical family-in-a-haunted-house performances that we have come to expect. It's neither terrible nor great, just acceptable for the occasions. Robbie plays the common creepy child character that has been seen in countless other horror films; but, again, it's what these kinds of movies call for, and the PA films aren't any exception. As usual, there are the parents who refuse to believe that what's going on is real, until it's too late.
But sometimes, there are a few performances that are slightly better. The relationship between Kathryn Newton and Matt Shively is a bright spot, engaging in some playful flirting and joking here and there in the film's several dull areas. The older Katie figures more prominently in this installment; as compared to the previous two films where she only appeared in one or two scenes each. Katie still has that certain chill factor because even when she's acting normal, we know the evil she has done when possessed and the evil she still desires to do. However, the passable acting can only take the film so far.
One of the worst things about this installment is that it has devolved into mostly cheap jump scares. Yes, the other PA films had some of these as well, but not nearly as many and were mostly in the start of the films just to get the audience's blood pumping (remember the closet scene from the beginning of the third film?). Now, the scares are mostly people and the family's cat popping up in front of the camera, as well as the use of jump cuts to create scares, where we'll have a character in one spot and then, through a jump in the edit, appear in a different spot. With this, you can see that the film-makers have become lazy with their frights.
As with each new entry in this series, more ways are introduced to film the events. This time, the audience sees everything through laptop cameras, smart-phone video recorders, and even the Xbox Kinect. Although the writers deserve some credit for coming up with new ways to present the footage, the laptops don't add anything different because they just sit around in different areas of the house recording from various points-of-view; they mostly copy what the security cameras did in the second film. The way how the Xbox Kinect is used is that there's a laptop placed in the living room, and when all of the lights are turned off, the viewer can see the infra-red tracking dots that cover the area. The first couple of times we see the dots, it's spooky to try and find where there is any sign of movement within the dots; however, it soon becomes a little boring and ineffective in creating scares. Ultimately, these new methods of filming aren't as interesting as those used in the other installments. I don't think anything can be as nerve-wrecking as the camcorder mounted on the oscillating fan in the previous film.
Zack Estrin and Christopher B. Landon were the screenwriters, and seeing how the latter wrote the vastly superior third PA, one would think that the same amount of terror would seep into the fourth movie. Sadly, that's not the case. Unlike the other three films that benefited from slowly growing tension that led to frightening conclusions, this film doesn't build much towards anything; which is ironic because the film's tagline reads, "All the activity has led to this..." What little excitement this movie has is just thrown into the final act, and by that point, I was just too annoyed to get scared because of how long it took for something interesting to happen. They even employ a few winks to some horror classics, such as The Changeling, The Shining, A Nightmare on Elm Street and The Exorcist, films that this movie doesn't deserve to reference.
What's near unforgivable with this movie is its ridiculous plot twist that comes about two thirds in. It's one big cop-out because I was waiting for the reasoning behind the twist to be explained, only to have my hopes shattered. To have us wait for anything good to happen for most of the movie and then not even bother to address the logistics to the twist is nothing but a slap in the face. Now, we're going to have to wait for a fifth movie (it has already been greenlit for October 2013) for this plot twist to be explained, if the writers even decide to continue this story line.
The PA franchise is beginning to run the same cycle as the Saw franchise. That is, it will come out with a movie every October, having the first few films be good and then a decline in quality will commence as the franchise gets farther in, due to the need to rush out the latest installment in order to make the viewers content no matter how good or bad it is. Directors Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost should have done a better job with Paranormal Activity 4; not only because of how well they handled the third movie, but also because we wanted an acceptable horror film that rewarded our wait to see what happened after Katie kidnapped Hunter. Whether these two decide to take another swing at the franchise with the fifth entry or not, the next film will need a director who can recreate the scares that had audiences returning to the theaters for the previous installments. Otherwise, if the fifth film can't bring the PA films back on track, hopefully one of the doors mysteriously opening on its own is the demon walking out and quitting.
Final grade: D+
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