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A Short But Sweet Review of "Paranormal Activity 3"

Whenever I review a new film too extenvely, I end up inadvertently throwing some spoilers in there, so I'll keep this brief:

Go see "Paranormal Activity 3". This installment is better than the first 2 (both of which I enjoyed) in almost every ngle way. The scares are bigger, the cameras-set-up-around-a-house premise is carried off with an ingenious oscillating new wrinkle, and there's more character development to boot. "PA3" has the added benefit of making "PA2" look even better in retrospect by following through on things that film hinted at, in a way that is scarier than it sounded at the time. My only (minor) complaint is that there were a couple times where it really didn't seem like these people would keep filming, but there are potential character-based arguments that could be made to explain why they did.

Overall, I was extremely impressed by this film. It may even be that rare gem that I see in the theater twice.

For those of you who are sticklers for rating systems, I give "Paranormal Activity 3 " 4 and 1/2 out of 5 stars.

As a huge fan of the PA series, I got to say I am hugely disappointed by the film.

When they announced that Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman were directing, I was immensly excited. Catfish was my favourite film of 2010 and after LOVING 1 and 2 of PA, I have been literally counting down the seconds till this was released.

Maybe it was because I got totally sucked into the marketing and the extremely favourable reviews, but I actually found this one to be the least scariest of the series. I thought PA1 was terrifying, and PA2 had some solid scares, but I found this one to be too anti-climactic. I will give them huge browny points for that fan camera. That was a master stroke of genius.

I also wasn't a fan of the new elements of the mythology they added in (to avoid spoilers, I'll assume you know what I'm talking about!).

All in all, I didn't hate the film, but I was hugely disappointed, and I would say that 1 and 2 are definitely better than this one.

Hopefully PA4 ties up the loose ends and delivers better scares (for me of course)!

I'm sorry but I find the entire series boring and completely not scary at all. I have however seen all three movies so I'm not one of those people who rags on movies they haven't seen.

Even though the novelty of Paranormal Activity may have lessened with its second and third installments, it has certainly delivered at the box office.

And like its predecessors, it has managed to do so with an impresvely tiny budget and without relying on any well-known names to bring in viewers.

Sure, there are moments where audience members may find themselves struggling to suspend their disbelief, but when is that never the case in a horror film?

The use of children as core characters adds an element of realistic vulnerability to the entire franchise, and the "evil" of the story is one that could ealy have lurked on the periphery of many of our childhood terrors: balancing delicately between imagination and faith, fact and fear. Truly terrifying, PA3 was not, but at suspense and stripped down storytelling PA3 excels.

I for one, was happy to see a horror film reigning once more at the October box office.

Different people are scared to different extents by different things, which is why it's so hard to please ALL horror fans with a ngle movie. For me, PA3 was scarier than the other two. I thought the finale of the movie was more surpring and well executed than the endings of PA1 and PA2. When the young girls were ascending the staircase towards their fate, I have to admit I actually did feel a sense of creeping dread for them. Going in reverse chronological order can be tricky; you have to reveal the past in a way that makes the future the viewer already knows about seem scarier, rather than in a way that weakens the other movies. I think PA3 is to be commended for how well it pulled that off. Sure, we didn't see what happened to Katie and the baby yet, but that just wasn't the focus of this movie. The creators of this franchise seem to have smarts, and they seem to have a plan. I'm inclined to trust them. For me, PA3 widened the potential of this series. But it's interesting to read other people's thoughts, both potive and negative. I'd say I think PA3 is scariest, then PA1, and the least scary is PA2, which is still a pretty eerie flick at times.