Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Paranormal Activity 4


I was eager to watch this movie after loving the third installment so much (I think the third is actually my favorite), and by the time I walked home, there were gale-force winds to contend with.  I'm lucky I didn't get blown away like the cow in the movie "Twister."  I also don't know about anybody else who saw this in theaters, so maybe it was just my theater or something, but the audio in the version of the movie that I saw was really wonky, and it was hard as hell to understand what people were saying (it almost sounded like people were talking underwater) so after awhile, I mostly sat back and watched the images onscreen to decipher what was happening and ignored the dialogue.  That might have had an affect on my enjoyment of the movie, I don't know, but while I did enjoy it, this was my least favorite of the four movies.

In this installment of the movie, it is 2011, five years after the events of the first and second movies (chronologically, the movies go 3, 1, 2, 4).  A family starts to notice weird things happening after a woman and her young son move in across the street.  The young son of the family soon becomes friends with the new little boy, and things get even weirder.  The teenage daughter of the family has her boyfriend set up cameras around her house in order to catch any strange phenomena.  The girl soon begins to suspect that the  new woman and her son are not what they seem to be.

For those who've seen these movies, the new little boy is the older version of the toddler boy from part 2 of the series.  Telling you who the woman claiming to be his mom is would spoil things for people, but you'll recognize her when you see her if you've seen the other movies (or when you see the actress's name in the credits).  I honestly think that this movie will mostly appeal to fans of the other three, since it tries to be a stand-alone film but it kind of fails.  Also, it's stretching the premise a bit too far.  I mean, what's the purpose of setting up the cameras around the house if the bulk of the action occurs when the teenage girl is carrying a camera around with her anyway?  And who in hell would keep carrying a camera while some of this scary shit is going on?  In part 1 and 2 they made a big deal about using the cameras because of the night vision function and because they can't see in the dark, which made sense, but in this movie, she doesn't really need the night vision function, she just carries the camera around because the script told her to, and it's much less believable.  Also, the mom and dad of this family are the worst fucking parents in the history of film.  I get that they don't want to believe anything supernatural or nefarious is going on, but...


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After my daughter nearly DIED when the garage doors locked her in and the car turned on by itself and filled the garage with carbon monoxide fumes, and she had to drive the fucking car THROUGH the garage door to escape, I wouldn't just act like everything was fine and nothing weird happened and stay in the house and go about my life.  I'd fucking LEAVE.


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In the previous movies, they make a big deal about telling you that the demon is haunting the family, not the house, so moving won't solve anything, but in this movie, they could have at least TRIED to leave the damn house, and the fact that they didn't do so wasn't plausible at all.  It was just stupid.  Maybe leaving wouldn't have helped them either, because by that time the demon had a hold on their family, but the fact that they didn't even consider it made my suspension of disbelief roll its eyes and stomp out of the theater, slamming the door behind it.  There are some good jump scares and some of the imagery is creepy, but this one is definitely showing that the series is on its last legs.  If they plan on making a fifth movie, they'd better come up with something good to do to renew audience interest, because otherwise this series will be dead in the water.

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