Paranormal Activity 3 Review
2011, 84 minutes
Rated R for some violence, language, brief sexuality and drug use
Paranormal Activity 3 is the latest film in the Paranormal Activity franchise and it is terrible. I do not understand the 72% approval rating on rottentomatoes.com. The original in this series was absolutely brilliant using simple sound and visual effects on a shoestring budget to make one of the most terrifying films ever made. And they should have left it at that. The latest Paranormal Activity offers up a lot of suspense, but no payoff. Each "scare" is a rip-off of the original or a cheap or fake scare such as when the babysitter pops in front of the camera as a joke and to keep the jumps coming. That does not cut it. There were not enough paranormal scares or interesting ones to keep the interest level up. Also, some of the scares came so obviously that eventually I wanted the movie to be over. Yes, I hiding in my seat due to the suspense, but the payoff just was not enough. When is Hollywood going to learn that they need to let good ideas rest? With the money that this movie is producing, they won't learn any time soon.
On a positive note, some of the twists and scares were so dumb that many audience members started laughing. Once they started, I started. Towards the ridiculous ending, there are some lines and images that are so unintentionally hilarious that I laughed out loud.
Bottom line, I'm glad I used a gift card on this piece of trash. Those 84 minutes could not have been over sooner. I thought Horrible Bosses was the year's new low, but this just took it lower. I really loved the directors Joost and Schulman's previous film Catfish (it was included in my top 10 of 2010), but they really blew it here. Who knows? You may like it. But for me, this was one big cheap scarefest without one ounce of originality in it. I normally do not see films that are this bad, hence the lack of scathing reviews posted on here, but I had to write about this one due to the hype surrounding it.
Leave comments below if you saw this and let me know what you thought of the movie.
1/4
-Joshua Handler
No comments:
Post a Comment