Mania Grade: B+

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Info:

• Starring: Christopher Nicholas Smith, Lauren Bittner, Dustin Ingram, Chloe Csengery and Jessica Tyler Brown
• Written by: Christopher B. Landon
• Directed by: Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman
• Studio: Paramount Pictures
• Rating: R
• Run Time: 84 minutes
• Series:

Mania Review: Paranormal Activity 3

Paranormal Activity 3
© Paramount Pictures/Robert Trate

 Guillermo del Toro once said that horror depends on one of two things: the presence of something that shouldn’t be there or the absence of something that should be there. The Paranormal Activity series has made a considerable amount of money by exploiting that formula with lethal efficiency. The bulk of each film involves small, seemingly incidental details that should not – in any rational world – exist. A door swings closed in the middle of the night; a sheet vanishes only to reappear somewhere else; a clawed footprint shows up next to a bed. There’s no blood and very little violence, save towards the end of each film when the unbearable suspense demands a cathartic release.

The first Activity turned that equation into one of the scariest film experiences in recent memory. The second film gave every indication of decreasing returns, as it sought to copy the formula rather than expand upon it. Paranormal Activity 3 goes a long way towards restoring the franchise: not as good as the original, but far more unsettling than the initial sequel. Like its predecessors, it works best as stimulus response, delivering its spookhouse thrills as efficiently as it possibly can. Directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman fail to break any major new ground, but within the established formula, they still discover new ways to freak us out.

How, you ask? Let us count them. These movies depend solely on a central gimmick of cameras set up around an ostensibly normal home occupied by an invisible monstrosity. They don’t move, which simultaneously limits our perceptions and forces us to stare unblinkingly at whatever nameless horrors arise before us. This third entry brings new wrinkles to that equation, like a camera in the children’s bedroom that can’t quite see that creepy corner or an oscillating recorder that slowly scans back and forth across the main living space.

From those technical tweaks, Paranormal Activity 3 creates a completely refreshed package: playing the same scenario out while still holding us rapt for every minute. You wouldn’t think a corny old bed sheet could scare the living crap out of you… until one moment that sent an entire theater of hardened horror fans shrieking into their popcorn during the press screening. For sheer knee-jerk scares, Paranormal Activity 3 won’t have any serious competition all year.

That’s really the name of the game, which makes it easy to overlook some of the film’s narrative problems. We flash back to the late 1980s, when the two sisters in PA 1 and 2 were little girls and that demonic entity haunting them both first appeared. They live in a pleasant Santa Rosa home with their mother (Lauren Bittner) and her new boyfriend (Christopher Nicholas Smith), a happy family without a care in the world. Then those sinister bumps in the night kick in, and something Not of This Earth starts putting the supernatural whammy on the little girls’ tea party.

Beside the addition of the children, very little separates this scenario from the first two. The scares sometimes deteriorate into an extended game of Where’s Waldo, as we try to guess which hanging object is going to start shaking or which doorway will pop open unexpectedly. The final revelation falls short as well, with old horror movie skeletons coming out of the closet to rattle their bones at us inefficiently. Joost and Schulman respond with some clever presentation, but the final section makes it an uphill fight. The film also begins to clutter the “Paranormal-verse” with a lot of unnecessary backstory, robbing it of its once elegant simplicity and earning comparatively little in return.

This third entry possesses another weapon against undue repetition however: a knowing smile and a sense of humor than earlier versions lacked. We laugh a lot during this Paranormal Activity: both the nervous laughter that comes from unbearable suspense and broader laughter that evokes the sheer fun of horror movies. And we do so without compromising the film’s frightening core – the belief that those unknown things hiding in our childhood closet have finally come for us. The family here is kinder and more sympathetic than either of the first two, and their dynamic never feels forced. There’s a lot riding on those two little girls (Chloe Csengery and Jessica Tyler Brown) and they pass the test with flying colors. We finally have some real innocents to root for, and it makes a huge difference in keeping this franchise alive.

The Paranormal Activity folks clearly see themselves as the new Saw, with a new quickie entry presented every Halloween. Thankfully, they haven’t lost sight of the intelligence and elegance that made the franchise a hit in the first place. Paranormal Activity 3 never breaks new ground, but it knows how to do its job. If Paramount chooses to continue this burgeoning tradition (and there’s little doubt that they will), they could do a lot worse than following its example.