Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension is a Christmas movie.
Boy, this movie was not as good as the (limited release) theatrical 3D showing from a decade ago. It was a random path I took for me to suddenly realize that the majority who hated the film were likely right & thus a viewing at home in 2D would change my opinion—this was true, and I am someone who enjoyed all of them except the 4th installment.
As explained before, the first Paranormal Activity is one I’ll always have a soft spot for. It was a movie championed on a long-defunct podcast a full two years before it came out. The early screening in Orlando will forever be an all-timer: evidently, I was one of the few at the sold-out showing who knew anything beforehand… the first act, people were laughing and scoffing at the film. Once the scares happened—the mood drastically changed, and the crowd was terrified.
Ever since then, I enjoyed seeing most of the sequels on the big screen, even if the crowd experience w/ those was never as incredible as the first movie. Yeah, the story for the franchise was clearly made up on the fly with each movie-no way could Oren Peli have predicated this would receive five sequels. At home, what a goofy movie this is. Yeah, they tried for meta commentary at times and the family we follow feature a goofy pair of brothers that drink Pabst Blue Ribbon, get stoned and have facial hair, including one sporting a pornstache!
Still, this is a motion picture where this family find a souped-up 80’s camcorder custom-built with six lenses and this allows them (alongside the viewer) to “see spirits,” meaning swirly shapes. That is goofy-not to mention how they found VHS tapes of another family at the house. Otherwise, it felt familiar as Tobi the spirit-yes, that’s the official canon spelling, not Toby- targets the little girl of the family-the types of scares also felt old hat by this point when the movie wasn’t utterly preposterous. There is a franchise resolution of sort, although even a decade ago I was like the mainstream in thinking it wasn’t entirely satisfying for a series that involved witches, cults, time travel, and general weirdness.
For all the flaws contained in Ghost Dimension, I still don’t hate the movie-blame my affinity and connection with the franchise. For better or for worse, it popularized the found footage genre, a trend (or plague, depending on your tastes) popular for years. In my original review for Ghost Dimension, the purported claims of this being the finale were met somewhat skeptically by me. Of course, there was a standalone sequel that gave off the stench of “it has hardly anything to do w/ the rest of the series” so that’s why I never gave Next of Kin a chance. Will curiosity ultimately win me over in the future?
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