'Paranormal Activity 3'

'Paranormal Activity' (R) (3 STARS)

Writers: Christopher B. Landon and Oren Peli
Directors: Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman
Starring: Chris Smith, Katie Featherston, Sprague Grayden,Lauren Bittner, Chloe Csengery, Brian Boland, Dustin Ingram

You pretty much get what you expect from a "Paranormal Activity" movie and by now you would think it would get old. The 2007 surprise smash "Paranormal Activity" was an effective shocker that instead of gore affected us with things that go bump in the night. There are a lot of fans of that movie but also a lot of detractors. The movie was slow in setting up the shocks and that is why I liked it. It built up great suspense and made me a jump a lot, the movie had a flawless use of it's quiet nature.

When the second "Paranormal Activity" came out so fast after the original I groaned. It had to be a terrible rush job but I was surprised at how good it was. At some point you are going to see the same old things you saw in the original. The second movie though did a great job setting up a seperate story that intersected with the original. Now coming into a prequel in the form of "Paranormal Activity 3" I was really groaning. Though what do you know, I liked "Paranormal Activity 3" just as much as the second one if not as much as the original. This time though there will be many more detractors for this go around, some of the execution I agree is repetitive.

"Paranormal Activity 3" takes place before parts 1 and 2 when Kristi and Katie, the main characters in the first 2 were kids. The movie still uses a video camera that is set up to film what happens overnight. Dennis films and his girlfriend Julie is the non believer. Dennis and the girls think there is a presence in their house and little Kristi seems to have an imaginary friend (or is he imaginary?) The movie then unfolds slowly giving us what the first two did, objects moving, dissapearing and a lot of bumps and crashes in the night.

"Paranormal Activity 3" you would think would have the same old types of scares that the first two did and that would be true. What is surprising was how I still jumped in the right places and how much the movie affected me. The makers of all three movies know what they are doing and they do it well. This third movie has more plot than the first two and I think that is an improvement. There is more at stake at the end and I thought the ending, though also familiar, was well done and effective. This is a simple call on this movie. If you didn't like the first two movies stay away, if you did like them you should like the third one.