This one scared me. I saw it while it was still in theaters and even after the first movie scared the crap out of me, the second one kinda bored me, so I wasn't expecting the third movie to scare me. I just ran right into it and smacked right into a wall of creepy-crawly feelings. I watched the third one in theaters, then had to walk home alone in the dark. the previews for the movie had quotes from moviegoers who said that this movie was even scarier than the first movie, but what did they know? I was sure I would be fine heading into the theater. I was tough, no horror movie was going to scare me. Pride cometh before a fall, Eileen.
This movie takes us back to the past, when Katie from the first film and Kristi from the second movie were little girls living with their mom and their mom's boyfriend in a brand new house in the 80s. Back in those days they only had video cassette recordings, none of the fancy new digital cameras like we have today. The boyfriend sees something that looks supernatural to him and decides that he's going to film their new house while they're sleeping at night? trying to catch something otherworldly happening. Soon he's pouring over hours of grainy VHS footage and his girlfriend thinks he's crazy, but strange things keep happening around the house, getting more and more frightening, until everything starts to fall apart and the family has to make a choice as to what they're going to do to stop the demonic activity before it's too late.
Throughout the film, we learn many things. Like it takes these people FOREVER to have sex. Seriously. that's a thing that we learn about these people while we're watching the early videos they took, when they were trying to make a sex tape before they got rudely interrupted and some footage of what appears to be a ghostly figure standing in the corner of the room prompts the boyfriend to seek answers by videotaping their lives. it also doesn't feel like this movie takes too long to get going, as we start seeing strange things right away and it just feels like the pace on this one is faster to me. maybe it's because I like the family in this movie more than the family in the other movie, so I was invested in watching what happened to them as their lives fell apart.
Something has to be said about the actresses who play the little girls in this movie, because they did an AMAZING job making everything that happened seem real. Kudos, kids. I know plenty of adult actors who can't do that, so I'm impressed. One particular scene in the bathroom works really well to ratchet up the tension. Another scene with a teenage girl they have babysitting the girls leads to a scene with a bedsheet that actually made my heart skip a beat. I'm not kidding. And I can't fault the mom for being skeptical of the story once the boyfriend finally tries to present it to her because he does sound crazy once he starts laying it all out, and the both of them ultimately make the exact wrong decision and fall right into a trap, but I can see why they thought it was the wise decision. in these movies you always wonder why the family doesn't just LEAVE THE HOUSE, but this movie posits the question of what if you DO leave the house but it doesn't make a difference because it's not the house that's haunted, it's YOU. Nifty idea, huh? While this movie didn't scare me as much this time around (for which I am eternally grateful) it was still able to put a chill down my spine and it made me jump several times, too. It's still my favorite of the series, and I don't see that changing even after I watch the rest of the movies in the series tomorrow. Come along with me on my spooky journey! Hope to see you there.
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