Paranormal Activity 3
DIRECTED BY ARIEL SCHULMAN AND HENRY JOOST
Less a bona fide film than an extended static thrill ride, the third instalment of the Paranormal Activity series is, even more than its predecessors, a persistent parade of calculated spooks. As such, it’s a notable improvement on the incident-light second effort, and adds just enough to Oren Peli’s hugely profitable, low-budget, “found footage” formula to keep things from growing stale.
The most obvious of those additions is a period setting, dictated by the decision to explore the repressed childhood trauma of sisters Katie and Kristi, the demon-plagued protagonists of the first and second film, respectively. The year is 1988, and the young girls share a multi-storey suburban home with their mother, Julie (Lauren Bittner), and her boyfriend, Daniel (Christopher Nicholas Smith). The pretext for the now-preposterously-convenient continuity of the series’ essential camera-in-every-room setup is that Daniel is a wedding videographer with plenty of spare equipment.
If anything, the ’80s setting is slightly under-exploited, but in predating inexpensive consumer security cams, it does contribute to the film’s second, more enterprising addition: namely, when the covert demonic doo-doo begins to hit the fan, Daniel does away with its blades and slaps a camera on top, creating an oscillating surveillance platform. Directors Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost (of 2010’s mis-marketed maybe-documentary Catfish) delight in playing peek-a-boo with the pivoting frame, which is probably the single most inventive conceit in the series to date.
Otherwise, Paranormal Activity 3 is basically the same routine, but Schulman and Joost wisely forgo a protracted period of household objects going bump in the night and proceed quickly to the genuinely creepy nocturnal misadventures of young Kristi (Jessica Tyler Brown) and her ill-tempered “imaginary friend.” The concept may no longer be the fresh, less-is-more pre-Halloween treat that it was three years ago, but as a reliable source of sudden frights, it continues to do the trick.