Paranormal Activity 4

One last horror movie for the road as we leave Halloween. Unfortunately, this one wasn't scary either...

I'm a huge fan of the first Paranormal Activity. Saw it in theaters when it first came out and - oh boy - was it creepy as fuck. Yeah, I was first rolling my eyes at the thought of another "found footage" movie, but searching for creepy shit going on in a haunted house worked beautifully. The time elapsed footage of the woman just standing over her husband for hours while he sleeps in bed; the random loud bangs in the dark; the woman just waking outside in their yard with no memory of how she got there. It scared the crap out of me and definitely made it difficult to sleep for the next few nights. I've been "fortunate" enough to experience this feeling quite a bit while watching horror movies as a kid, but seeing Paranormal Activity has been the most recent occasion of that ever happening (and, I think, The Ring before that). Although each sequel to this franchise has entertain/spooked me (a bit), this is by far their lowest point.

I found nothing either scary or inventive about Paranormal Activity 4. At least with every other sequels (er, prequels) you would see the creators try to introduce new ways film the spooky crap going on around them. In the third installment, which takes place in the 70's, the characters don't have security cameras or sleek, fancy HD cameras. Instead they have one of the main characters (who's conveniently a wedding videographer) mount the camera on an oscillating fan motor, which creates a lot of suspense and terror as the camera slowly pans back-and-forth, back-and-forth revealing something new and disturbing each time. 

This film is the first in the series to be a direct sequel to the first installment, which means that they're able have security cameras, webcams, and even an Xbox Kinect (cough, cough... blatant product placement) that can be seen in night vision - it lights up the living room with a bunch of green christmas lights. (Actual that was pretty cool. If you haven't seen what Kinect looks like in night vision, check it out here.)

Still from the movie where the night vision combined with the Kinect are used. Helps add another level of spookiness, but is far from sealing the deal. 

In the end, the movie just tries to rehash similar gimmicks used over and over again from the previous films. Sadly, it no longer has the same effect. 

Perhaps the one thing that frustrates me the most in this franchise is that lack of story development. Now, the first movie didn't really explain a lot, and that's totally fine - in fact, the less you understood the more mysterious and captivated you became. If you're not all aware of the storyline of this franchise, it's incredibly simple. This first movie: haunted house; turns out there might be a demon that has been following the wife since she was a little girl (although her memory is fuzzy on the subject); film ends with the woman becoming possessed, killing her husband, and stealing her baby nephew from her sister (while killing that whole family as well). Second movie (a prequel): we learn that sister to the woman who will later be possessed was originally being haunted by the demon and her and her family figure out how to throw the curse over to her sister instead - great sense of family values. Third movie (another prequel): we go back a few decades to when the two sisters are just kids and learn that their grandmother is apart of some witch cult and they are indoctrinated in (really confusing). And finally, in this film, we march forward for the first time. Now the possessed woman and the baby she stole are a few years older and have moved across the street from this teenage girl and her family. Same story as always. The girl is the only one who senses some shit is up and eventually everyone gets knocked off. By the climax, when the girl tries to escape (all the while running with a camera to keep the movie going), she is stopped by a giant horde of creepy-ass women (probably witches based on the evidence in the third movie) and the camera cuts out with one last scream from the girl. 

So... what should the audience take from all this? I HAVE NO CLUE! You would think after four fucking movies they would really start to piece together some strong narrative that would explain the mystery behind this invisible demon that's been tormenting (or serving?) this family for decades. But, no. All I've got is that there's apparently some secret cult of witches and that they have an invisible demon under their control that only young, disturbed children can see for some reason. 

I'm sure there are more and more of these movies to come, which makes complete sense. They're cheap to make and bring in the dough. My only suggestion: start building the story and start building the characters. We're lucky enough to have the same woman from the first movie still around. Sure, she's possessed and evil, but do something with that. She was barely present in this last movie (drops her kid off to stay with the family across the street because she has to go to the hospital or some shit). I guess what gets me angry is that I see a lot of potential for them to take this franchise and make it into something really compelling and epic, and, yet, they're just squeezing the juice out of it rather than breathing new life into it.

Well, I guess they certainly wouldn't be the first horror franchise to do that. Happy (belated) Dias de Los Muertos, folks.