Paranormal Activity 4 picks up where Paranormal Activity 2 left off. Katie has absconded with her nephew and she is taken to the hospital was soon as the movie begins. The boy staying with him is forced to stay across the street with the neighbours and all kinds of strange things begin to happen. The ‘twist’ in the movie did take me by surprise, but the family that is haunted is truly unknowing of their peril until it is far too late. The movie follows the oldest daughter as she keeps her webcam on her laptop and phone on at all times, and gets her boyfriend to assist with turning the cameras on all the computers in the house and XBOX.
The beauty of good horror movies is that they make you feel comfortable and then tear that feeling away with reckless abandon. What the original Paranormal Activity accomplished was to deliver a true ‘home movie’ style movie made famous by Blair Witch Project. In the first sequel, the story delves deeper into the lore, following the events that occurred prior to the first movie, showing why the demon was following the one sister so suddenly. The story ties between the first two movies were delivered well. In the third movie, the story flashes back to the two sisters’ childhood and the origin of their ‘friend’ and his connexion to the family. The ending of the fourth movie lent itself well to the ending of the fourth movie, but at long last, the scares have finally become stale.
I was scared, don’t get me wrong. But I didn’t find the story nearly as compelling, despite some very believable performances from some young actors. The idea that the demon keeps haunting people stunts the overall story. I understand that the endings can’t be ‘good,’ but by the same token, there has to be some end in sight, and yet again, there is none. I respect what the franchise has accomplished, but for me, this might be my last time going.
What respect I had for the PA series came from it's connecting the 3 films (before this 4th one) and merging them altogether even if the project just started off as one low budget romp. That said, I never did find the movies scary. A little unsettling at times, to think of such a thing happening to me, but that's where it ended sadly.
ReplyDeleteI love a good scary movie, but find it hard to actually get scared by them :( To hear that you get freaked out a little easier and still found this one a bit dull saddens me.
I loved the fact that the first movie was just an idea by a guy to explain scary noises in his house! I have to admit, last night I did get scared as I thought about the movie after dark, but otherwise, it wasn't nearly as scary!
DeleteNot as scary as the last three entries in the series, but still a bit creepy at times and still has some fun with itself. However, I do wish that they gave it some more thought in how cool and original they wanted the scares to be. Good review Hina.
ReplyDeleteI agree - I think there is more they could do without breaking away from the original idea, or maybe give some more context to the backstory.
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