When I looked around the theater in the middle of Paranormal Activity 3, I couldn’t help but laugh. I am not going to lie — I have never seen a guy with muscles that big get so scared.
But that’s the beauty of Paranormal Activity 3. It may not have the best plotline or the most unexpected twists, but it will scare you nonetheless.
This prequel, directed by Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost, mimics the previous movies in the franchise with its home video-like footage and less-than-threatening setting.
The difference between this movie and the last two, for me, was exactly how scared I got.
Granted, I’m a huge wimp and all of the movies have scared me — but this one had me in fetal position after about 20 minutes.
Two little girls, Kristi (Jessica Tyler Brown) and Katie (Chloe Csengery), live with their mother, Julie (Lauren Bittner), and her boyfriend, Dennis (Christopher Nicholas Smith).
Dennis is a wedding videographer, and when he begins to notice some creepy happenings in the house, he sets up cameras to catch any unusual occurrences.
A camera in the girls’ bedroom loft and the master bedroom are reminiscent of the past two Paranormal Activity movies, but an added twist comes with a panning camera.
Dennis rigs the camera up to a fan, to survey the living room and kitchen areas. You never know what you are going to see as the camera turns.
Schulman and Joost do a nice job combining eerie, psychological scares and, of course, the stuff-popping-up-out-of-nowhere scares. No matter who you are or who you’re with, I guarantee you’ll be jumping out of your seat.
Aside from the jolts and screams, the movie has a surprisingly likeable cast.
Remember how in the first and second movies in the series, you kind of wanted to strangle the characters yourself after awhile? In the third installment to the franchise, you find yourself actually rooting for the characters.
Paranormal Activity 3 doesn’t reinvent the series by any stretch of the imagination, but it definitely provides some new scares that freaked me a lot more than the previous films.
Good luck sleeping after that.