Paranormal Activity 4 Review

Alright, Paranormal Activity franchise. Listen up. I think we need to sit down and have a talk for a second, which is going to be a bit awkward considering I am just now catching up on these films years after they were released, but still, what I am about to say needs to be said.

You surprised the hell out of me by releasing three films I actually mildly enjoyed. THREE! After I saw the first one when it was released, I liked it and all, but I figured that was pretty much it for me. No chance a sequel would work, and any subsequent films beyond that point? Forget it. All going to be lazy garbage cash grabs with little to no redeeming qualities, yet now that I am actually sitting down and taking a lot at these films, it turns out they are a bit lazy but just enough clever and smart set pieces and scares to make them worthwhile cash grabs. Doesn't sound like much, but trust me, it's a win.

I feel like I need to really emphasize this to make sure I get my point across: I would watch the first three films again. Hell, I would buy them on Blu-ray provided they were only a few bucks each so I could enjoy them again when the mood strikes, or when my kid is old enough that scaring the ever living shit out of her just before bedtime becomes fun rather than frowned upon.

You had to go and make a fourth one though, didn't ya? You just had to. What makes it worse is that you took the already strained as far as it could go connective tissue that the first three featured and included it AGAIN. It was dead, there was nothing left to tell regarding the stories of sisters Katie and Kristi and the adorable little doomed to be a fucking creepy scamp Hunter. Personally, I still wish each film could have been its own standalone entity featuring different paranormal situations, locations and characters because most of what keeps me up at night is the concept that what I am seeing could happen to me too, and that just isn't there when you attach it to specific people for specific reasons that could never apply to me. Still, despite this qualm, it worked for three films. THREE! (I'm still shocked myself). Paranormal Activity 4 though, good gravy is this thing is a turd.

Lackluster jump scares, set pieces lacking originality or creativity, uninteresting characters, and a reliance on the totally overplayed "creepy kid" factor that horror films keep trotting out over and over. I could give minor credit for the usage of the Xbox Kinect, which is pretty cool, but for me it doesn't have a lot of luster since I have been watching the Chads on Ghost Adventures use that technology for years, and trust me when I say that those guys yelling "SOMETHING JUST TOUCHED MY HAND BRO! SOMETHING JUST TOUCHED MY HAND! DO YOU FEEL THAT! DO YOU FEEL HOW COLD IT IS BRO! IT'S SO COLD RIGHT HERE BRO!" is far more entertaining than anything that occurs in Paranormal Activity 4. Nothing here even dreams of coming close to the ingenious simplicity of the camera attached to an oscillating fan in the third movie.

The next movie I watch is Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones, which I am anticipating might be poor in quality due to word of mouth but truthfully I have no idea what it is about, what characters are in it and so on. I have no idea if it in any way connects to these four films, but I hope not. Enough with the damn sisters and the kid. You had me for three (THREE!) films, I bought in enough to enjoy the ride. Everything crashed to the ground during the boring, uninspired Paranormal Activity 4.




1/5