I had the pleasure of attending one of the first showings of “Paranormal Activity 3” in the Spartanburg area on Thursday night with a nearly full theater (the later midnight show had apparently sold out shortly before 10pm). And to say that PA3 is a thrill a minute is a bit of an overstatement, however I will freely admit that I jumped out of my seat more during this movie than any other in recent memory. Directors Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost notch up the tension, occasionally leveling it out with some much needed humor, and then piling on the suspense in a way that makes me smile with ghoulish approval. However, for those looking for answers to unsolved questions from Part 2, there will surely be disappointments. Several of the plot threads brought up in that picture are not resolved or even dealt with in this installment, and in fact, one of the new explanations for the activity seems added purely to provide another sequel come next October.
The by now familiar faces of troubled sisters Katie and Kristi are only seen during the first few moments of the film, which is itself a prequel of sorts to the prequel that was Part 2; it’s not quite as confusing as it sounds. The flashbacks begin when a box of old videotapes is discovered that were made by the girls’ mother (Julie)’s boyfriend (Dennis) back in 1988, and were among the possessions of their late grandmother, Lois. As a child of the 80’s, I was happy to see the familiar static starts of video, and that ever present time stamp, and despite the beautiful digital projection in the theater, the film itself has the appropriate grainy, aged quality. Other 80’s artifacts, like a mischievous Teddy Ruxpin doll were less welcome sights.
Although we have been led to believe from the first film that the mysterious activity started around the girls when they were young children and held a séance; and from the second that a decades-old pact with a demon may be responsible for the disturbances, Part 3 deliberately introduces a couple of new theories: one revolving around Kristi’s imaginary friend Toby, and the other involving Julie’s coolly disapproving mother, the aforementioned Grandmother Lois. Kristi’s devotion to Toby, and her insistence that he is real starts cute, but becomes more disturbing as the film goes on. The intensity of her relationship with Toby begins to threaten anyone else who gets close to Kristi: the house’s other residents, as well as visitors like a creeped-out babysitter, and Dennis’ goofy assistant.
Imagery from the earlier films is repeated, including invisible hands grabbing and pulling people, strange trance-like incidents where someone stands staring at a sleeping body for hours at a time, and some kitchen mishaps so spooky that it would make Paula Deen drop her butter. Also from the earlier films is the recurring idea that if you are a male character in one of these movies, things are not going to end well for you. This may be the recurring theme of the films that bothers me the most.
To say that the ending is a cop-out doesn’t feel quite right to me, as I had assumed that the filmmakers would conclude the series as a trilogy, but apparently the franchise is making so much cash for Paramount Pictures that they are unwilling to see the story resolve itself. Even so, I did feel a bit cheated that there wasn’t resolution of the conflict at the end of Part 2, and that the ‘demon deal’ plotline was dropped in this picture. And, even though the story seems to be now headed in a different direction, the thrills, chills, spooks, and jumps come just as honestly as they always have, and “Paranormal Activity 3” guarantees an uneasy sleep for the audience, perhaps even moreso than the first two films did.
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