Paranormal Activity 3 Blu-ray Review: An Unwanted Bump In The Night

By Simon Gallagher / March 1, 2012

Film

rating:2

I have a theory about horror films in the future: the genre is now decidedly split between conventional/traditional pieces and gimmick-driven ones, and the latter branch will eventually degenerate completely until the gimmick supersedes the idea of film itself. So the Saw franchise will extrapolate the demise of expendable human characters to such a degree that Saw 20 will be no more than a close-up montage of traps closing on bloody, unrecognisable hunks of meat (which crueller commenters might suggest the franchise already is). If it is to continue (and it surely will), the Paranormal Activity franchise will follow that trend, reducing every recognisably filmic convention until its just 90 minutes of black screen, with a ghoulish face appearing suddenly once or twice to make everyone jump out of their skin. The problem, you see, is that films like Paranormal Activity criminally undervalue the traditional conventions of film-making and story-telling precisely in order to appear "innovative". And when that innovation makes them money, they'll push it and push it until it is stretched unrecognisably and extremely unpleasantly. Even at this early stage in the franchise, the decisions behind the film are dangerously anti-film - or at least anti-progression, which is something that horror franchises seem to go hand in hand with. It is a franchise limited from the get go by the fact that its one great idea was its only good and relatively fresh idea, because deviation from the theme would betray the very essence of the original film, while endlessly regurgitating the same thing ends just as badly. So really, Paranormal Activity 3 could never win, and in following the second approach, of simply retreading the same ideas with the thinnest veneer of difference, it can and will appeal to only the most ardent of franchise fans. Then there is the decision which determined that the film would be a prequel, a cliched development that would usually come later down the line, but which at least allows the story-tellers the opportunity to stick to the same story, rather than following the Saw route of introducing a whole new group of characters to be terrorised. The problem with prequels though is that it takes away all sense of mystery, something that this third outing has been roundly criticised for, because in taking away even the most basic sense of story-telling mystique, all the audience is left with is that feeling of waiting in a dark room for a scare you know is coming to jump out. And that is no more than the first steps to that ultimate reduction I opened this review with. Some of the jumpy bits do work, and they perfectly channel that irresistible feeling of shame a horror watcher gets to having been tricked into the scare, but even in its most explicit attempt to flesh out the "mystery" of the hauntings, Paranormal Activity 3 ends up losing some of its scare agenda. There are only so many times the same horror motifs can be used, no matter how uneasy they make us feel, and cumulatively the cost is fairly easy to count in the reduced amount of really affecting flashes of fear. The only really impressive parts of the film are the performances of the two young leads - Jessica Tyler Brown and Chloe Csengery - on whose young shoulders the responsibility of most of the film's heart rests, and they bring both naturalness and prowess to their performances. Surely names for the future if they are to continue in the same form. They sell that crucial, innate uneasiness that comes with the juxtaposition of youth and the supernatural, and are vastly more impressive than their solid but unspectacular adult counterparts. The most enduringly frustrating thing about Paranormal Activity 3 is that it is so insistent on its own success (but obviously, only on its own terms) that it fails to tell the entire story, and what it does tell has already been seen before for the most part in the same franchise. The incomplete resolution, which opens the door for another prequel/sequel robs the film of any of the substance it could actually have managed, and the lasting effect is not of a hearty horror meal, but of an insubstantial franchise morsel with a few meager spots of good taste in a bland grey sea of gruel.

Quality

rating:3

Not really the point of a Paranormal Activity film, considering the home movie conceit, but there are still things to be judged here. For the source, the transfer is as good as its ever going to get (and in fact is probably a little too good for even the best home-video technology of the time). Textures, black levels and detail all suffer for the medium choice, but that's sort of the point, with the filmic quality adding to the atmospherics, and you can't really judge the transfer badly on those terms. The best thing that can be said of it is that it is completely on-brand with what the film-makers have obviously intended. The audio on the other hand can rightly be a little more raved about: though again it is a little too impressive for supposed VHS home-video footage, the cleanness of the soundtrack helps in the atmospheric stakes. Atmospherics are the best part of it, as was always going to be the case, but dialogue is nice and clear and well centred, and all-in-all the audio is definitely the strongest weapon in the Paranormal Activity 3 armory.

Extras

rating:1

An advert for Dennis' video-taping business is about as good as it gets. Director's Cut Cinematic Cut Lost Tapes: Scare Montage Lost Tapes: Dennis' Commercial Digital Copy DVD Copy Paranormal Activity 3 is available to buy on blu-ray and DVD now.