I get it, I really do. The 'Paranormal
Activity' series of movies are dirt cheap to make and they
make money hand over fist. These could very well be the
most profitable movies ever. If this movie 'Paranormal
Activity 4' makes half as much money as its predecessors, thus
theoretically making it a commercial failure, in reality it's
still a commercial success. I get it, this is the United
States of America and it's a free economy and the goal is to
make money. That being said, this was awful and I wish
it would end. My wish will not be granted anytime soon,
but fortunately for me I'm used to disappointment so the pain
of 'Paranormal Activity 4' was easier for me to deal with.
Last time we saw the bodacious Aunt Katie (Katie Featherstone)
was at the end of the second movie where she displayed her
super powers, eviscerated her sister and stole her sister's
baby. What's Katie been up to in the time between then
and when the last movie went back to the 80's? I don't
really know but baby Hunter is now six year old Wyatt (Aiden
Lovekamp) and Wyatt is now the adopted child of the Smith's,
and in particular he is now the younger brother of the Smith's
fifteen year old daughter Alex (Kathryn Newton). Katie
lives across the street from these people and while she's not
in possession of little Wyatt anymore, for reasons that will
never be explained, she is still in possession of another
little weird boy in Robbie (Brady Allen), which will also not
be explained, a little boy who through circumstance will be
leaving Katie's house and staying with The Smith's.
Today's devices for obnoxiously taping everything will be the
handheld camera that Alex likes to drag around, the handheld
camera that Alex's paramour Ben (Matt
Shively) likes to drag around and lots of
webcams that are constantly running on PC's. We also
have the added bonus of the Microsoft Kinect apparatus which
looks really cool when the lights are off as shines its little
lights all over the place and catches all movements.
Even movement's from beings… THAT AREN'T THERE!
So little Robbie is weird, he talks to the mysterious Toby who
nobody can see except he and Wyatt, he walks around the house
at night, and he likes to climb in bed and snuggle up next to
Alex who can obviously sleep through anything. Other
weird things are happening while Robbie is at the crib like
chandeliers falling from the ceiling and the usual
unexplainable noises and bumps and moving objects, and Alex
knows something is wrong but her folks ask her to shut the
hell up and stop tripping.
Guess her what? Alex's folks should've listened to her
because there is some paranormal activity going on in this
house and it's not good paranormal activity either.
Katie and her superpowers want Wyatt back, the hidden monster
wants Wyatt back and they also want the virginal Alex.
When they aren't trying to kill her. Make up your mind
paranormal monster.
You know what I really want out of a Paranormal Activity
movie? I want to be in one of those test audiences they
show using night vision on the TV commercials. You know
those audiences, right? The ones that are going apeshit
over every single bump and sound and low rent special
effect? I want to be in the middle of that so that
hopefully some of that frantic fear could rub off on me,
because you would've thought the audience at the movie I was
at when I saw 'Paranormal Activity 4' was watching one of the
lighter episodes of 'The Golden Girls'.
I actually enjoyed 'Paranormal Activity 3', or at least as
much as these found footage movies can be enjoyed, and that
movie seemed to be the logical conclusion of the series.
I know that Aunt Katie was still floating around out there,
but once we found her what more could we really do with her
that they hadn't done before? And if anybody shouldn't
want to be on videotape, it should be the murderous,
kidnapping Aunt Katie. As it turns out, the only thing
more we could really do would be the bright lights from the
Kinect controller, and that would just about end the
innovation portion of this particular 'Paranormal Activity'
movie.
What's really missing from this particular episode is any real
tension or fear or shock value. At this point in the
game we've seen it all already. We know the kid sees
somebody that's not there, we're used to things moving on
their own power, we used to non-believing adults, so the jolts
that might've been effective in movies one through three just
aren't nearly as effective anymore. Something else
needed to happen to get the blood pumping and it didn't happen
here.
The movie did play the 'virgin card', meaning that our ghost
had some kind of nefarious plans for Alex, when it wasn't
trying to murder her, thus making our paranormal monster a
little on the inconsistent side, and while getting to the end
was chore we knew once we got there something worthwhile and
exciting had to happen. 'Paranormal Activity 2' was
about as dull as this one, maybe even duller, but it did have
an ending which didn't save the movie, but at least left you
with a semi-satisfied feeling. This one tried to pick it
up at the end, but to what end? Since very little was
paved by way of exposition, outside the little virgin squib,
hell if I know what that nonsense at the end was suppose to
have resulted in. And where are the investigating cops
while folks are getting their necks snapped, slammed against
ceilings, not to mention the missing children and
virgins? What's up cops?
I wish it would end, but it's not. And since I'm one of
the offending parties going to see this, I can only blame
myself.
