Review of Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension (2015) by Tracy S — 02 Nov 2015

The supposedly last Paranormal Activity film hits theaters with the strangely titled Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension, a truly horrible film that doesn't bring and scares or even closure to the franchise.

The Paranormal Activity movies started out fine with three solid films and after the fourth movie the franchise has become nothing but rehash after rehash of what was already established. This unfortunately continues with The Ghost Dimension.

The main issue here is that there is absolutely no innovation or even effort for scares. This movie is filled to the brim of cheap jump scares that are mainly just loud noises with something flying across the room or at the camera.

They even copy one of the best scares from the second movie, only to show that they truly ran out of ideas. However, this film does market that we will finally get to "see the activity" and while this could have been a good idea, the execution is beyond poor and almost on amateur level.

The use of CGI here is out of place and the actual effects are not creepy, scary, or even ghoulish. They mainly use water effects that you would see from a busted pipe and there is no real point to it.

To answer the obvious question, yes you finally see the demon and it is extremely disappointing and extremely cartoonish. The story here did have potential. It made a mild effort to answer some of the questions from the franchise like who was watching the tapes in the third film, what happened to child from the second film, and what was with the group of women from the fourth and fifth movies.

The story here revolves around a young family with an visiting uncle who comes across a video camera that picks up strange images and soon after the child gets a new invisible friend named Toby and chaos insues.

Several details in this make little to no sense and the actions and logic of the characters are ludicrous and virtually nonexistent. For example there is a yoga instructor here who happens to be an expert spirit photography.

IN what world does that even make sense. Also, the title Ghost Dimension has no merit or use here as there is no other dimension only rehashed plot points from previous movies. As it seems there is a theme of disappointment, they seem to have forgotten the main need for a final chapter: continuity.

Some of the events of previous movies get recanted fine, but finer details fall through the cracks for convenience and leaves the actual story as a jumbled mess. The only good thing that I can say about this movie is that the acting here is actually very good.

The parents are sympathetic, the child is effective, and the uncle is hilarious and great comic releif. Other than that one aspect, this movie is an abysmal failure. Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension promised a lot and delivered on absolutely none of it.

The scares are all the same, the added CGI effects are atrocious, and they couldn't even get the continuity right. I don't know how else to say it but skip Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension, this franchise has been dead since the fourth movie and this is simply the final nail in the coffin.