Let me be the first to say that I was never a big fan of the first 'Paranormal' movie. Like everybody else, the first time I had ever heard about it was during its original marketing campaign, which was pure genius. Shortly following, everybody and their brother was talking about this movie and how scary it was. It took two more years until I gave it a chance and saw it for myself. I was underwhelmed. I figured that if I really wanted to watch people sleep, I'd still be sharing a room with my siblings.
However, Paranormal Activity 2 won me over with its prequel-sequel combonation and ever since then I have been looking forward to the third one. After hearing that it was going to be done by the guys who did Cat Fish, I got even more excited. However, like the first film, I was disappointed in the result.
It starts out like any Paranormal Activity movie: a step-father/ husband figure gets a new camera which happens to be conveniently followed by strange happenings around the house. So what does he do? He sets up cameras around the house in attempts to document this paranormal activity. However, I feel that the burden has fallen upon me to report that, dispite the claims made in the trailer, we never discover the secret behind this activity.
When the ending hit I cannot say that I was surprised (it ends like every other Paranormal Activity). However, I was still expecting a little more of an explanation outside the old: grandmother is a satanist shtick. Sure, much is left to the imagination, but when you get to the third movie in a trilogy, is that what we really want? The filmmakers could have done that with this franchise had each film been a stand-alone story, but when you try to build upon already established mythology and continue a story into a third film, the audience expects to learn a bit more about what's really going on. I mean, after all, that's what trilogies are all about, right? Going back to the beginning? Discovering something that wasn't true from the get-go? Besides, the stanic grandmother isn't anything we couldn't have picked up from the second film.
This is a horror movie so some of the lack of story may have been forgiven had this movie actually been scary. Remember what I said about a lot of this movie being nothing but people sleeping? That wasn't an exaggeration. With the expection of a couple of jumpy scenes, this movie just drags along, leading nowhere except an to anunacceptable conclusion.
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