Paranormal Activity 3 (2011)

Director: Henry Joost, Ariel Schulman

Starring:  Lauren Bittner, Christopher Nicholas Smith

In 1988, young sisters Katie and Kristi befriend an invisible entity who resides in their home.

This prequel to a prequel doesn’t offer anything new, as it is pretty much a case of been there done that. Nothing about the film was credible, and the acting unconvincing. When the couple decided to film their sex scene, it was so obvious they either need marriage counselling or they’ve never had sex before. They just didn’t know what to do! There are just so many flaws in the film. Notice on Night 7 the camera recording light is off, yet the camera is recording. With the girls, I got so confused with who is Katie and who is Kristi that it later didn’t matter anymore. When Kristi stands motionless for more than an hour watching the couple sleep, it doesn’t have much effect, as it feels they included this scene because a similar scene in the original film was highly effective. When Dennis scans the tapes, he never even sees this, though. Neither does he see when Kristi jumps off the banister. Both these events should have been important enough for them to focus on, but they don’t. The imaginary friend story is also way too cliched. The film also blatantly steals from other films, including ‘Poltergeist’.

There are so many instances where it is just not logical for Dennis to be walking around with a handheld camera – especially towards the end. There are scenes where he literally picks up the camera first before trying to save the girls. Seriously!!! Who would believe this?

On a positive note, I did find the moving camera set-up effective, as this was logical. I also enjoyed the absence of jump scares and jump scare music. In general, though, I would not have missed anything by not watching this.