Jason KingPARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3: A Review
November 19th 2011 05:32
:
Best So Far
Category: Reviews
Let me set the scene for you. I love the franchise of Paranormal Activity and have loved this style of horror filming since I watched The Blair Witch Project with the directors sitting behind Ewan McGregor and John Luigizamo (that is prob spelt wrong 
). I then got very drunk with the directors asking them about Blair Witch and the purpose of the ears and so on and so on - pity I got so drunk or I would have remembered all their answers But I had been so keen on seeing the third Paranormal after loving to bits and pieces the first two and keen to see if they could pull off a third one.
So here I am, away from Sydney for work, converting 35mm cinemas to DIG projection and upgrading sound systems and staying by myself in this beautiful hotel down the road. Bored at night I decide to check out the new cinema, the new sound and, of course, Paranormal Activity 3. At 9pm in a cinema where not one other person has purchased a ticket.
The success of a film, for me, is to keep the audience member engaged and removed from reality for the duration of the film and then to get an emotional reaction out of the viewer. This can be extreme happiness in a comedy, tears and sobbing from a drama, fist pumping "fuck yeahs" from a Bruce Willis or Transformer's action film, incredible lustful reactions from a Taylor Lautner or Zac Efron film (hahahaha - had to throw that one in) or in the case of horror a sickening scaredness and elevated levels of fight or flight. Not only did I have elevated levels of fight or flight - I was seriously scared - I was completely removed from my comfort zones and had to constantly Facebook or text during the film because I was seriously considering flight. This is the scariest film I have seen since Insidious and quite possibly the scariest film I have ever seen.
The success of these films is based in the formulaic approach, don't give too much away and allow the viewer's imagination to mess the viewer up all by itself, it is damn clever and straight from The Blair Witch book of film making. Now this one is a prequel and set when the girls from the previous two films are young children and explains much more than any of the others. I hope they end the franchise with this one as it is a perfect circle of the story and much darker than the others.
But how do they make a prequel set in the 70's with no digital camera's monitoring the houses? Easy - they use VHS, an editor boyfriend and a remade pedestal fan to attach a camera to that swings left and right. And those camera shots are by far the scariest. In on scene every time the camera returns to a position something else is there and F ME - I nearly let a little bit of pooh come out
If you are a fan of these films then I highly recommend it, if you are a teenager who wants a partner jumping into their arms or wants to make out to stop watching the scariness then this is a definite MUST SEE. If you appreciate a good film made in this style then I also recommend it. If you can't do horror and you are freaked out by the supernatural then steer clear at all costs. It is out now and I absolutely loved it - worth 8/10.
). I then got very drunk with the directors asking them about Blair Witch and the purpose of the ears and so on and so on - pity I got so drunk or I would have remembered all their answers But I had been so keen on seeing the third Paranormal after loving to bits and pieces the first two and keen to see if they could pull off a third one. So here I am, away from Sydney for work, converting 35mm cinemas to DIG projection and upgrading sound systems and staying by myself in this beautiful hotel down the road. Bored at night I decide to check out the new cinema, the new sound and, of course, Paranormal Activity 3. At 9pm in a cinema where not one other person has purchased a ticket.
The success of a film, for me, is to keep the audience member engaged and removed from reality for the duration of the film and then to get an emotional reaction out of the viewer. This can be extreme happiness in a comedy, tears and sobbing from a drama, fist pumping "fuck yeahs" from a Bruce Willis or Transformer's action film, incredible lustful reactions from a Taylor Lautner or Zac Efron film (hahahaha - had to throw that one in) or in the case of horror a sickening scaredness and elevated levels of fight or flight. Not only did I have elevated levels of fight or flight - I was seriously scared - I was completely removed from my comfort zones and had to constantly Facebook or text during the film because I was seriously considering flight. This is the scariest film I have seen since Insidious and quite possibly the scariest film I have ever seen.
The success of these films is based in the formulaic approach, don't give too much away and allow the viewer's imagination to mess the viewer up all by itself, it is damn clever and straight from The Blair Witch book of film making. Now this one is a prequel and set when the girls from the previous two films are young children and explains much more than any of the others. I hope they end the franchise with this one as it is a perfect circle of the story and much darker than the others.
But how do they make a prequel set in the 70's with no digital camera's monitoring the houses? Easy - they use VHS, an editor boyfriend and a remade pedestal fan to attach a camera to that swings left and right. And those camera shots are by far the scariest. In on scene every time the camera returns to a position something else is there and F ME - I nearly let a little bit of pooh come out
If you are a fan of these films then I highly recommend it, if you are a teenager who wants a partner jumping into their arms or wants to make out to stop watching the scariness then this is a definite MUST SEE. If you appreciate a good film made in this style then I also recommend it. If you can't do horror and you are freaked out by the supernatural then steer clear at all costs. It is out now and I absolutely loved it - worth 8/10.
| 35 |
| Vote |
Add To: 
subscribe to this blog
Comment by Morgan Bell
Deep Pencil
Business News
Movie Train
The actors are better. There was a more complex plot. And the rotating fan camera created amazing suspense, it was a fantastic device.
Finally an installation that used more tricks than a fan blowing the sheets off a bed.
For all the skeptics out there, this Paranormal Activity is semi decent. I would put it at the same level as The Last Exorcism. Entertaining but no masterpiece, basically a good popcorn film.
Comment by Jason King
Sydney Table
Salty Popcorn
Total Randomness
I also really liked the guy that worked for them in this one - that scene when he is babysitting freaked the hell out of me while he was trying to keep the girl calm - F That - I would have run like a baby screaming my head off.
Comment by Anonymous
The rotating fan is just that little bit too slow which is perfect because on every painfully intense slow oscillation, you almost whimper as the shot gradually becomes unveiled.
It is a great, great horror flick and although i was unsatisfied with the ending, i still believe it to be one of the greatest horror trilogies in cinema.
Comment by Jason King
Sydney Table
Salty Popcorn
Total Randomness