Thursday 28 March 2013

Paranormal Activity 4 - Phil's Five Words for Films

Paranormal Activity 4  The Law of  Diminishing Sequels is very much in evidence with the P.A franchise and the fourth film in the series does nothing to halt their slide in to the pit of sequel oblivion.  Directed once again by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman ( Catfish & PA3 ) there are some new, interesting characters but very little in the way of scares or horror.  Following on from the events of PA2 , the 'action' centres around Hunter, a missing child from the second film, who is forced to stay with the family across the road after his mother is taken in to hospital.  Once in the house, strange things start to happen and the new family find themselves being stalked by supernatural forces.  Most of the footage is filmed by laptops and the family games console provides the directors with a new gimmick to play with but the menace, jolts and bumps from the first film ( here ) are just not present.  The last thirty seconds of the film do at least deliver a little in the way of spine-tingles but the rest of the film is lightweight, frustrating and fails to deliver anything unsettling. Interest in the main characters adds a little but, on the whole, the journey isn't worth the ending and PA4 is the weakest in the series by a long way. The tag-line states that 'All the Activity has led to this..' Oh well.

3.5 out of 10.
Cert 15 ( uk )
2012.

1 comment:

  1. Good review Phil. While the first two follow-ups at least attempted to give us something new and create a mythology, part four is bereft of ideas and rehashes moments from both its precursors and classics of the horror genre. I didn’t hate it, but it definitely didn’t take me by storm.

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