Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Paranormal Activity 4




Runtime: 88 minutes

Directed by: Henry Joost, Ariel Schulman

Starring: Kathryn Newton, Matt Shively, Stephen Dunham, Alexondra Lee, Katie Featherston

From: Paramount

Before I get to talking about this, I saw the movie in the afternoon and it wasn't until I got back home that I heard the big news about Disney and Star Wars. I don't quite know what to think about it yet. It just came as a major shock to me, needless to say. Hopefully Episodes 7 through whatever are better than the prequels.

Now, onto PA4. The fact that I just saw it now rather than as early as I could as with the other three... not a good sign right there. Before going on, I'll provide links to the previous reviews I've done of the series.


Now, onto the film. I did not pay much attention to the advertising this time around. Turns out it's a good thing. Once I got back I heard that once again, much of the footage you saw in the advertising wasn't in the actual movie. Up yours to the people responsible for having such an audience-insulting thing happen two years in a row.

You probably know the story already: this time the movie is set in 2011 in Nevada; a normal family discovers that there is a new family which lives across the street... rather, it's a young mom (who you don't see at first but you can probably guess who it is) and a little boy. As they get to know the boy better, the family (mainly a 15 year old girl and her boyfriend) get creeped out. They have a young boy of their own and the two types become pals... but I won't reveal too much more.

I've enjoyed the previous three entries in this franchise to varying degrees; overall, though, I liked all of them despite any warts they may have. This one, though, left a bad taste in my mouth. It's a shame as the girl and her boyfriend were rather likeable characters. I was never really annoyed with them, which are legit complaints about some of the people you see in the franchise. Plus, there's the creepy unsettling moments you expect from the franchise.

Yet this story is full of plotholes. For example, for no reason at all the boyfriend seemingly vanishes for a large stretch of the movie only to return. Another seemingly important character vanishes, never to return. You'd think you would want to know the whereabouts of that person at all times, but I guess not. Then, it's stressed early on that the two leads always look at the footage that gets shot (via laptop camera; hey, things are modern now; you also see a Kinect used); that stops as more serious things happen. That's right, they stressed how they looked at the footage but suddenly they don't? Why, that don't make no sense! Sure, if that was done the story would be much shorter as the doubting parents would have proof, but it's problems like that which plague the story. I know you can nitpick the story with the series in general if you really wanted to; this was really blatant, though. And the ending... the film stops more than anything else. Even more so than usual. Let's just say this movie raises many more questions than answers anything that was asked before.

So overall I was real let down and disappointed with this. That seems to be a common opinion. And oh yeah, there seems to be a blatant “”homage” to something in The Exorcist, and also something ripped off from The Changeling. No, not the Angelina Jolie movie. The 1980 one with George C. Scott that is a lot better than this motion picture.

I'll be back tomorrow night with what should be an appropriate review.

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