Today I am going to review "Paranormal Activity 4," The latest entry in today's most infamous found footage horror series. Before I start my review I would like to talk about something that you guys should check out. For all of you video game players out there (and I know there are lots), there is a great youtube channel just for you. It's called the "Free Gamer's Alliance" and they have been gracious enough to plug my blog in their videos. They do various video game videos to cover all of your needs. Their videos cover everything from walkthroughs, glitches, easter eggs, and various amusing video game related content , all of which is delivered with some colorful commentary while they have a ton of fun doing it. So check them out at https://www.youtube.com/user/FreeGamersAlliance/. All right, time to talk about "Paranormal Activity 4," for those of you who haven't heard of this movie, the trailer is below.
- This movie gave fans of the previous "Paranormal Activity" plenty of appearances from the past. That is something that I think fans wanted to see. People were gasping and clapping when these characters appeared.
- I always enjoy the casting in these movies. As usual the people playing the family that will encounter the paranormal phenomena are believable, sincere, and likeable, and are a pleasure to watch. I could easily watch a movie consisting solely of their antics.
- The ending was phenomenal. I managed to sit through the past 3 movies without batting an eye and the ending in this one (while somewhat predictable) made me scream and it made me scream loudly. It saved the movie.
- Let's start with the obvious, like the other "Paranormal Activity" movies, there were parts that were slow and unnecessarily so. I couldn't help but spending quite a bit of the movie making snide comments in my head as my attention would often start to drift.
- Unlike the last "Paranormal Activity" movie where they tried some interesting and fresh things both with the story and the camera (can anyone forget the camera on the fan?), this one really felt stale and formulaic. It's pretty much the exact same setup with a family being terrorized by this thing, one person knows it's trouble but everyone else is in denial, etc. It would have been nice to see some twists and turns.
- Because the movie was so formulaic, the audience can easily see most everything coming from a mile away. I spent the majority of the movie with the words "called it" going through my head.
- The shots done with the Xbox Kinect (as seen in the trailer) were cool at first, but they became so overused that it actually became annoying and actually somewhat headache inducing.
- The movie felt longer than it should have been. I already touched on that a little bit with the slow parts but they could have cut out a good chunk of that and nobody would have known the difference.
- Like myself, I know that many paranormal activity fans were looking for some answers. By that I mean that I was hoping they would address many of the loose ends from other movies. They addressed one minor one and not completely. Once again, it felt as though the filmmakers were stringing the audience along again to keep milking this franchise.
If you are looking for a good scare at the end and some good Halloween fun, check this out in theaters. If you're looking for a movie that feels fresh and will tie up the loose ends in the franchise, steer clear of this one. In essence, if you aren't a die-hard fan of the franchise, this one will not win you over.
Thanks for reading guys, I will post another review once I've seen another movie. In the mean time I want to expand the section of the website for non-theatrical reviews so comment below with some suggestions!!