15 Greatest Horror Films Of The Decade (So Far)

Paranormal Activity 3 is a shockingly great sequel which is creative, interesting and adds a lot to the franchise as a whole. 

The first Paranormal Activity was a simple movie, and it seemed impossible to keep that going. How do you make a series out of a horror film that was essentially just a bunch of shots of people sleeping? Well, Paranormal Activity 3 does have some of those classic bedroom shots, but it also adds in a great amount of new material. There's the brilliant use of an oscillating fan, where a camera is attached to a fan as it moves back and forth across the room.

There's also a really tense sequence where the camera is placed on a tripod while the kids play Bloody Mary in the mirror, tapping into a classic childhood fear. Then there's the claustrophobic finale taking place inside a mysterious coven. The sequel adds in several cameras as opposed to the single camera of the original, providing a variety of new perspectives around the house when things are going wrong.

The Paranormal Activity franchise quickly went downhill after this, with Paranormal Activity 4 and Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones both being pretty disappointing. But Paranormal Activity 3 deserves a look, and it does a solid job living up to the brilliance of the original.