Paranormal Activity 3, which parts audiences once again with their cash while refusing to move the series' mythology forward, will frustrate those expecting any sort of continuation from the last film, despite some decent scares.
There are films which can be disliked on principle, because of what they represent, or the level of contempt they show for audiences. Last year's Paranormal Activity 2 was one such effort; marketed as a sequel which would explain the disappearance of protagonist Katie and expand the mythos, it instead deflated any and all hope within five minutes as it became clear that it was, instead, a prequel keen simply to milk the cash-cow. Putting the crassness aside, the thrill factor still generated a few heart-stopping moments, though the law of diminishing returns was evident - creatively if not commercially - even in that film, let alone in this disappointing follow-up, Paranormal Activity 3. Taking place largely in 1988, the third Activity is a breeze through a catalogue of videotapes belonging to the series' sisters Katie and Kristi. In the footage, the girls, both very young, are living with their mother and her boyfriend, Dennis (Christopher Nicholas Smith), as they experience their very first encounters with the demon which would taunt them years down the line. Soon enough Dennis, a technophile who films weddings for a living, sets up cameras around the house to capture any suspicious activity, and naturally gets a lot more than he or anyone else bargained for. Despite being a follow-up to a disappointing sequel, Paranormal Activity 3 does raise some curiously high expectations, not only because it plays fair this time - the film is a pure prequel, with no cagey changing-out of the plot - but also because it is directed by Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost, whose chilling pseudo-documentary Catfish was one of 2010's best films. Their knack for creating authentic situations of high anxiety makes them perfectly suited for this sort of film, and despite their firm, skilful effort, it is a script crucially lacking in context which ultimately lets them down. While the previous film was framed by title cards which guided us through the mayhem, this time there's no such luck; what you see is what you get, with no subsequent explanation given, and aside from some cryptic dialogue in the final reel, there's little effort made to get things moving forward. Much like the last two films, it's a slow burn, quietly building suspense, though by this third time around having become a little more tiresome in its methodology, as we sit through the rigmarole of a family experiencing strange phenomena like shaking walls and strange noises before they outfit their home with sophisticated recording equipment (which, with its wide-screen and super-high quality, feels positively anachronistic for a wedding recordist in 1988) and bad things happen. The atmosphere is still relatively eerie throughout, but the tricks feel exhausted by this third entry, while the nifty, new ones - particularly a camera mounted on an oscillating fan - are milked to the point of inertia. It is ironic that in trekking back in time, the scale of the scares has become more elaborate - a more playfully cruel demon this time grabs hair and turns entire kitchens upside down - but such is the curse of creating a prequel, to find a way to fundamentally up-the-stakes while not rendering the temporally subsequent events redundant or feeble by comparison. The greater outlandishness of the stunts this time, however, does create a tone which feels pleasantly like a pastiche of classic horrors - genre fans can queue up to the catch the references to Halloween, Poltergeist, even The Wicker Man and in its later moments, the frenetic handheld style of the recent films - but this is not enough to forgive its innate shrewdness for withholding answers from its salivating audience. It's a shame the construction leaves such a sour taste, because there are plenty of good elements here; the third act boasts some visceral thrills and pulse-racing suspense, though neglects to serve up any answers, instead just asking more questions. Performances, meanwhile, are wholly credible, and the child actors deserve particular praise given how instrumental they are to the film's effectiveness and our emotional investment in what is going on. Ultimately, though, while it might satisfy the seasonal Halloween crowd and the series' most ardent fans, the take-the-money-and-run stink is unmistakable and overpowering. Is it worth sitting through two dull reels for the sake of a sizzling last one? Paranormal Activity 3, which parts audiences once again with their cash while refusing to move the series' mythology forward, will frustrate those expecting any sort of continuation from the last film, despite some decent scares. Paranormal Activity 3 is out now in cinemas.