Review: Paranormal Activity 3

The best scares were the movie's characters pulling pranks on one another.

With Paranormal Activity 2 following the events of the first film, it is only logical in the studio's mind to crank out a prequel for the third part. We see Katie from the first film as a child, and witness the start of her demonic experiences through the eyes of a skeptical mother and a camera wielding step-father.

Maybe I will reconsider it if I watch it again, but Paranormal Activity was excellent in my opinion, I even wrote a post about how I felt its fixed camera gimmick was clever in forcing the viewer to keep watching. Other critics disagreed, and what we have now is exactly what those critics said: protracted silent moments of waiting for household objects to move.

It took a miserable five minutes before I was demanding this guy put his camera down just once (what a gent: filming two women carry boxes into the basement instead of helping out) I was honestly surprised when he didn't rescue the camera during an "earthquake". Even during family trauma (potentially aggravated by having cameras everywhere) his response to being asked to put the camera down: "No, it's okay, I feel like I need to be useful". 

There are no scares here. Everything is so framed and set up scene-by-scene that only a total idiot wouldn't see the supposed jumps coming, even the slower atmospheric moments are by the numbers: oh, block our vision will you? I guess someone will be behind him when we can see again? Yup, hi there. Oh, block our vision again? That shadowy someone is gone again? Yup.
Possibly one of the best sequences involves the Bloody Mary chant at a mirror. Wow, I know this is set in 1988 but that scare is really, really old.

By all appearances this film is trying to mimic the first (random sleep-walking time lapse footage) and it tries to pull off the same shock ending, but has to magic away four characters to do the whole "alone in a house" routine.

Generally speaking film franchises are supposed to get more extreme as they go (the Saw movies got increasingly gorier, for example) but here it feels like less happens, at least in terms of scares and in terms of explaining anything. "Discover how the activity began" boasts the tagline. Really? I certainly saw things occur, but I have no idea how any of it began.

The first film had me on the edge of my seat for the last twenty minutes, the second one wasn't as successful but felt like a decent sequel, this one just feels wasted; boring cliches replacing potential story building. But then that would be suggesting these writers could write a story.

Review: Mama

A horror I was always keen to visit with producer Guillermo Del Toro's name attached, but feedback had been shaky at best. Personally, the film wasn't terrible, in fact it had a lot of atmosphere to give.

Actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (of Game of Thrones fame) leads the film as Lucas, the brother of a father who disappeared mysteriously and how he has to care for his two nieces who had also disappeared only to be found alone in a woodland cabin. The two very young girls are traumatised from their experience, believing in a spiritual guardian they call Mama...

The film is a very simple premise, one of has been done before, but similar to Del Toro's other production project The Orphanage, Mama has a lot of presence and atmosphere as well as some nice character development. I think my only grievance with the movie (asides some mildly frustrating horror tropes and cinematography cliches) would be some dodgy CG imagery for the entity Mama. Mama's design is very intense and subtle, her hair moving as if underwater, but it feels as though the technology wasn't there to fully render her – her hair being a prime example.

The film is very murky but has excellent use of shadows and camera angles. Much of the film revolves around the two young girls, Victoria and Lily, and fortunately they are mostly competent actresses! Victoria is the older of the two and has more to do than the traumatised Lily. While Nikolaj Coster-Waldau does well, his character's girlfriend Annabelle (Jessica Chastain) steals the parent role midway through. Annabelle is part of a rock band (the film acknowledging how these two are not the sort to care for the two girls) Annabelle being the definition of unfit. The film does well to inspire confidence in her as it progresses.

Some criticise the ending of this film, but without spoiling anything I felt it was effective in an unconventional sense; it was going one direction but quickly pulls the rug from under your feet.

I enjoyed it, though it has already dated with visual effects which is very disappointing as it makes Mama less threatening. The film has plenty of horror tropes that it stumbles over and works tiredly with, but that isn't surprising for many horror films.