- Paranormal Activity 3. Directed by Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost. Starring Katie Featherston and Sprague Grayden.
PARANORMAL Activity 3 stands all on its own in the pre-Halloween horror lineup, other studios apparently having decided that they might as well wave the white sheet now rather than compete with the wildly successful phenomenon.
We all know the story of how Oren Peli's film, made for an enviously low $15,000, went on to make more than $193 million worldwide. The sequel, thanks to pre-release buzz, eventually earned $177 million, though the production budget was upped to $3 million. (Presumably, this was due to the high cost of renting a baby and future therapy for the toddler, who was dragged out of his crib and across the floor by unseen forces.)
Paranormal Activity 3 is poised to make an equally big dent in the pre-holiday box office, thanks to studio hype: Vancouver was one of the select cities chosen to preview the film earlier in the week, after a tweet-fest orchestrated by Paramount. The third film comes out almost a year to the day after the second, which came out only 13 months after the first. (If it 'aint broke, keep churning them out as fast as you can.)
Filmmakers cleverly intertwine all three films to make the audience curious about what happens next (or in this case, what happened first). New fans will certainly pick up Paranormal 1 and 2 to get the thread of the story, though the films stand well entirely on their own.
This film may give parents greater nightmares than teen viewers, as it all stems from an imaginary friend who turns out to be frighteningly real. The film goes back to 1988, during Katie and Kristi's childhood, early days in the haunting that would prove to be their ruin years later. After unexplained thumps and knocking in their suburban home, and claims of a ghostly presence by the girls, Dennis (Christopher Nicholas Smith) tries to investigate the source by installing video cameras around his home (he's a wedding videographer, which explains all the fancy equipment).
The found footage technique is a good one, though we no longer worry about the characters the same way we wondered about those poor people in The Blair Witch Project, back in 1999. Since then, Cloverfield, the Paranormal films, The Last Exorcism, George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead, Quarantine (and its Spanish parent, Rec) have all employed the technique successfully.
Anticipation is a rare thing these days: there's something about not quite seeing what's going on just beyond the frame that's terrifying. And it requires us to use our imagination, a tool we should all air out every once in a while. Filmmakers utilize the power of suggestion to full effect, aided by the feel of low-def '80s film footage.
This time around, Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman direct, replacing Tod Williams, who took over from creator Oren Peli (producer on this third instalment). Joost and Schulman are a good choice, having created a stir with their pseudo-documentary Catfish, about the
perils of Facebook. So the guys in charge have toed the line of reality and fakery before. Plus, now that we're (pretty) sure the Paranormal footage wasn't actually found, the formula could get stagnant: new blood is vital.
If you've seen the other films you know the source of the haunting, involving a grandmother and a deal with the devil. By rationing, per film, the family history, filmmakers have left room for both prequels and sequels: don't be surprised if a Paranormal 4 appears this time next year.
