Review of Paranormal Activity 4 (2012) by Tim B — 20 Feb 2013

Oh, Paranormal Activity; where did we go wrong? The first one did speak to me and creeped me out (though I dug it less on more watches... will have to wait a while before I attempt it again). The second one left me wishing I hadn't wasted my money and Part 3 gave the series some redemption.

I went back and forth as to whether or not I should have checked out Part 4 and finally gave in. I'm gonna try and make this one short and sweet since I already wasted enough effort toward it. First off, the 'found footage' is a tough format to justify with a lot of these flicks.

There needs to be some kind of logic as to why there would be a camera in a player's hand at all times. Most movies I've seen have tried to bring a good reason with it but Paranormal Activity 4 didn't even try.

These kids filmed every single aspect of their lives and I couldn't buy that they were constantly filming themselves doing the most inane/useless things. So the film lost with me in believability before the spooky shit even happened.

The flick went on to insult my intelligence by filling itself with plot holes and DUMB character moves in the name of getting a few jolts (which were not scary). E.G.: A character carries their laptop screen for a flashlight when 'scary stuff' happened rather than turning on some damn lights and picking up a WEAPON of some sort.

To add salt to the wounds, the flick repeated the same scenario for about three quarters of its runtime. A character sees something 'scary', sneaks around, and gets a 'jump scare' (usually from the house cat, who was an awesome actor btw).

How about changing it up for a bit? Throwing in some actual ghost shenanigans and having the characters be aware of said ghost shenanigans to up the fear factor? For kids who film every single aspect of their life, they sure don't seem to give a shit about the footage they take.

I don't know why it took two directors to helm this (Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, who did decent with the third entry). Zero suspense, zero scares and shots from a still laptop. That's it. Add to this some horrible editing that didn't help the plot (so a ghost just attacked a person and they're suddenly outside with their laptop with no explanation of how they escaped or got their laptop.

.. wow) and really crappy character development (Dad's not allowed downstairs at night? It's his freakin' house!) and you get a movie that frustrated me above anything else. Anything good going for it? Well, the actors did well with what they had.

Kathryn Newton, Brady Allen, Matt Shively and Stephen Dunham (RIP) all rocked in their roles and did their best with this crud. Katie Featherston still rocked it in her small part as well. Love her! I must also admit, I also dug on the X-Box Kinnect idea (cool effect) and wished there was more use of it.

Finally, the very last act of the movie did bring some potential back in. Too bad those minutes weren't used in the rest of the movie. I was left with frustration and boredom more than anything after watching this.

Slow-paced, non-scary, boring and tired. This series is played out, but here comes Part 5 for next year! ENOUGH!