Paranormal Activity 3

False advertisement is the film's biggest problem and is likely to upset a lot of fans off as it did to me and it should be illegal and considered as fraud!!!!! I don't know if they where trying to trick people to think what's going to happen to make it more suspenseful or a bad last minute decision but they took the worst possible direction ever borderline the horrible conclusion of The Last Exorcism. It had the whole feeling of tense unease going for it and a couple of cheap but clever scares and the whole planting the camera on a rotating fan is brilliant and the scariest parts of the film as well as one bedroom scene with the little girls and the clever babysitter scene but then they go to grandma's house and the direction and tone changed for the worse for me and I just didn't buy it for a second! This series use to be effective, raw and unrelenting but now it's just plain silly but the curiosity still remains with even more unanswered questions about this ghost tale that might lead to another sequel in the near future but for now I'm done with these type of movies because after this disappointing one that leaves you on a sour note this trend is fading rapidly. Another thing that it has going for it is the involvement with the audiences and knowing more than the characters making you scream at the screen waiting for something bad to happen which is more fun and playful spook this time around than being truly frightful but the acting and characters is probably the best of the series but it doesn't help the film's many problems and I'm officially Paranormal Activity out and I dare them to change my mind! Overall to basically not show anything from the trailers is criminal and a bad trick to me and shows that the directors don't give a damn about the fans and thanks for ruining a potentially good horror sequel, good job. Don't treat us fans like we are nothing we deserve better than this, shame on you guys for lying to all of us and getting away with it and shame on me for believing it, I'll learn my lesson for believing the hype! Don't waste a dime on this one! For once I believe the haters. I personally think they should be accountable for their false advertisement actions.

I did see the original Paranormal Activity and it I did enjoy the movie for the most part. I skipped the second movie in the series and now I am on to Paranormal Activity 3. Just like the original movie, I was prepared for the movie to drag on as the story builds. It is an expected style for this type of movie so to be fair I am not holding that against it in my review. I did however, dislike some of the building scenes that really didn't fit the storyline of the movie. I felt almost lost at times since there was really no clear roadmap to the plot until the end of the movie. As for the acting, it was on par with a bigger budget movie. The child acting was believable and did not take away for the flow of the movie. One other thing that was a bit annoying was the preview for the movie showed a scene that was not even in the theatrical version. The preview was very creepy and scary on it's own and it does not even occur in the movie. I was very frustrated with that and feel like it was a true bait and switch. If you are a fan of the series, you may like the movie overall. I however was very disappointed with the movie and would not recommend this movie to any of my friends.

Horror movies tend to polarize opinions all the time... Far more than the majority of movie genres. What one person might find scary may be humorous to another person... So when I left the theater after a packed screening of this movie , the audience seemed pretty polarized in their opinions. It really is an example of a 'you either love it or hate it movie' (Although some people may not take either extreme which is absolutely fine) .I am one of the people who came out of the theater loving it. Paranormal Activity 3 is a prequel that goes back to the year 1988. It follows the sisters Kristi and katie (from the last 2 movie's) 18 years before the events of Paranormal activity 1. Its an origin story that gives us a little more information but still leaves us feeling confused and uneasy. The new cameraman (Dennis) acts as a foster father to Kristi and Katie (The whereabouts of the real father remains open to debate) works as a wedding moviemaker. This gives a decent enough explanation as to why he seems to have top of the range filming equipment (for the era) . His character comes across as more caring and less irritating than Micah from PA1. The Mother of Kristi and Katie (Julie)came across as caring towards her children. The children who play Kristi and Katie actually come across and fairly decent actors. The basic plot is like the last two movies. Strange occurrences are happening at the house they are staying in. Dennis out of curiosity decides to set up cameras around the house to hopefully find something unusual. The greatest improvement of this movie over the other movies is probably the pacing. I wont ruin anything (that hasn't been in the trailer at least) but the younger daughter kristi has a seemingly imaginary friend, called toby ,that she talks to at night. As the movie progresses things get out of head fairly quickly and this imaginary friends becomes something real and horrific. The movie does a good job of taking us out of our comfort zones. We feel confused and that confusion adds a sense of helplessness. While we may know the formula of the last movies we know little about the monster. What we don't see ,but know is there, usually scares us the most. The camera footage itself comes across as grainy and lower in quality than before (Again the trailer is rather misleading) . It makes it feel more authentic. While you know its not real you cant help getting sucked in by the movies world. There are also some clever shots and effects (Scenes with the oscillating camera are ingenious at times) . The main complaints that I have with the movie are that sometimes the actions of Daniel can be questionable and the ending left me feeling a little unsatisfied. That being said it doesn't detract from my own experience of the movie. I was terrified! It may not terrify some (the ratings on IMDb show some that already) but I think the best thing to do is go watch it and make up your own mind

Hey everyone, i watched this film in the cinema today, and i have to say, it is one of the most Horrific films I've ever seen. by horrific i mean Awful. they could have made it far far better, Don't get me wrong, the film did have its moments where it made me jump, but nothing like what it was built up to be. There was parts in the Trailers which weren't in the film. Like the whole Bloody Mary scene was different, which was one of the moments i was most looking forward to. You didn't get to see what the demon looked like, they kept reusing ideas from the other two films, for instance, in paranormal activity 2 all the drawers and cupboards opened at once. Whereas in this film all the stuff in the kitchen was stuck to the ceiling and then fell to the ground with the majority of it smashing. Again this was very predictable. The majority of the audience i was with laughed at the film, there was even a girl who wasn't even phased by this so called 'horror' what was even funnier she predicted several things that happened. If you want to see this film, i would highly recommend watching it for free online something, because the film isn't worth money at all. Thanks for reading.

Set in 1988, this prequel focuses on Katie and Kristi as children, as the latter talks to an imaginary friend at the same time as odd, unexplained phenomena are noticed around the family house. This follows the formula of the first two, but it doesn't make the mistakes of the second(going bigger, and presenting a too similar situation with less likable people) and, also unlike it, proves itself a worthy addition to the franchise(and I'm now a lot less unhappy about the decision to make more than one of these... while the original can stand on its own, if one genuinely wants more, this provides a solid entry). As with 2, we get new information that contributes to the overall mythology of these(and they can actually be watched independently of one another, you don't need to see all three or to do so in any specific order), and it's immensely creepy(not all of what we got in the previous installment was), as are a lot of things in this. We again get a minimalist approach to horror, with us spotting shadows, small movements and the like that we cannot understand as anything natural, as well as noises. The viewer ends up scrutinizing every frame, trying to figure out what it is we're seeing and where exactly it is. On occasion, they will show us something, never overtly or believing their FX(which are literally invisible in this, nothing comes off as fake) or designs could somehow outdo the individual imagination of the audience members. The acting is great, including the kids(with some exceptions, a bit of their delivery is a tad off), and the characters come across as real(and we are introduced to how they relate to one another), with personality(if Dennis is arguably not terribly dissimilar from Micah) and they're affable(within reason, they're human beings, what I'm getting at is they're not obnoxious). The scares are effective, a couple of new ones(as well as some that we've already seen in these, though it doesn't feel repetitive or unsatisfying... I could barely feel time passing in the theater), and they still do not go too far. Obviously they work at all on account of the gradual build-up of atmosphere, something this does impeccably well at. The tension is palpable. This is a truly terrifying movie, that may rekindle a fear of the dark, and of your own home. The camera technology being different back then is addressed. There are a handful of scenes where you wonder why they'd actually film that. They don't detract from the whole. There is a ton of disturbing content and a little brutal violence and sexuality in this. I recommend this to any fan of these, and/or of the "found footage" subgenre. 8/10

As I said in the title, if you enjoyed the first two films, this is well worth seeing. Yes it does re-hash some concepts from the previous two, yes there are some laughs, you may be left with some un-answered questions, and yes, a lot of the scenes from the trailer aren't in the actual film. But you know what, if you want to see a masterpiece in inventive horror, watch a DVD of The Exorcist. If you want to watch something that will scare the crap out you psychologically, watch The Ring or The Shining. This film is exactly what it says on the tin, the third installment of a pretty decent series of films. So some of the frights have been used before, they still made my heart skip a beat when they were on a big screen. And the scenes from the trailer weren't in the film itself, so what, the scenes that made up the film itself were done well. I'm guessing if you're still reading you're a fan of the first two films, if that is the case, ignore the iffy reviews and go see. If you want to be anal about trailer scenes, plot holes and "what is the answer" questions, wait for the DVD.

PA3 is a prequel to the previous two films in which we find out the origins of the paranormal entity that haunted Katie and Kristie when they were adults. It is safe to say that there will be many moments in the film that will make you jump out of your seats and make your jaw drop in pure terror. This is the third film in the successful PA franchise that has since replaced SAW as the annual Halloween event. The formula has been established, and perhaps you already know if you'll watch this film or not. However, let me say this: the trailer is misleading. If you know me, I'm very much against movie trailers that spoil almost everything, so I loved how the marketing team approached this film. About 90% of the scenes in the trailer don't appear in the film, so the scares are actually much more satisfying, effective, and shocking this way, and thank goodness for that because I felt that the trailer was way too cartoonish and cheesy. Suffice to say that this film is successful in almost every way. Because this is the third film in the series, you may think you know what's going to happen. However, the film pretty much plays against your expectations on almost everything. For example, minimalism and subtlety is pretty much thrown out the window. If you were tired of the doors opening and shutting and the lighting flickering on and off in the first two films, PA3 will show you things you would never have expected would happen in a PA film. I'm not going to lie, there are some pretty elaborate and creative scares here, and most of these scares come from the genius addition of the oscillating fan camera, in which the camera rotates left to right. This not only makes for great use of effective jump scares, but also for the building of suspense and dread as we see things the characters don't. In terms of jump scares, there are many that appear. While many people might complain about this, the film really succeeds in building up the tension that we know that something startling is going to happen, and that's what makes it so fun and unnerving to watch. This may be counterproductive because what made the first film so scary and unique (to me) is the lack of jump scares and the lack of anything elaborate in general. In PA, the simplicity is what makes it so great, relying on the viewer's imagination to create the fear so showing all these scares in PA3 pretty much goes against everything established in PA. However, I'm not going to hold this against the film because the scares are orchestrated so well with the timing and editing that it doesn't matter at that point. I also want to point out that the scares come earlier than expected. It seems as if the directors know what the audience wants, so they're giving it to them. Not only is the quantity of scares much higher than the previous two films, but the quality of them are pretty great too. There is surprisingly a lot of humor added in the film as well. The film seems self aware of itself and has some fun with it. The character development is much better here than that of the second film. The parents are good as they are, but I have to say that the two girls were pretty great. This film proves that just because there are kids in a film doesn't mean they have to be bad and annoying. The only flaw I can find about the film is the climax because it was eerily similar to another horror film that was released a couple of years ago. However, I will say that PA3's climax was very terrifying to watch. Overall, if you didn't like the first two films, you'll like this one the most. If you're a fan of the series, you'll obviously like this one. And if you want to watch things that go bump in the night, PA3 is one of the best out there.

WOW, don't waste your money on this hunk of crap. Nothing for the first hour and then recycled scare scenes after that. The movie made no sense, there was nothing from the trailer in the movie and the ending was like a scooby doo ending. I wanted to slit my wrists during this film just so I could end my suffering and perhaps see some gore LOL I'm so happy I did not pay to see this film. For anyone who hated the Blair Witch Project, you will hate this film even worse. The makers should be sued for lying to everyone in the trailers, another Hollywood lie in order to get the cash. Dammit!

My sons and I are avid movie goers and especially like scary movies. We saw PA and PA2 together. We saw the trailer for PA3 and were ready for what looked to be a solid scary movie with some tying up of loose ends with the plot. What we found was a tired rehash of the same plot with a few new characters. The pivotal scenes from the trailer were completely absent from the movie. 1) the knocking game at the closet 2) Kristi walking along and jumping off the ledge of the girls' bedroom 3) the film of the mother watching this in horror 4) Kristi throwing water on "Toby" to show him to her mother 5) the paranormal investigator who comes to the house and has his head slammed into the table 6) the lights exploding one by one down the staircase 7) the house burning down 8) the mother being thrown back when she says she wants to leave All the scenes from the trailer that made me excited to see the movie, inexplicably absent. This movie would have been much better with these scenes added. Instead, the movie ends terribly. What could have been a real blockbuster ending, tying the three movies together, was actually a complete dud. These guys and their franchise will never see another dollar from me.

Anyone who believes that this a good movie needs to get out more. Firstly I an not sure whether the version we got in Australia was the same as the US but 75% of the decent scenes from the trailer were not in the movie. How does that work. There was minimal effort put into this movies and it shows. You don't watch these types of movies for the acting so when the rest of the movies fails to deliver then you have a bomb. The effort to build up tension and suspense was underwhelming and it was so poor that at times I found myself laughing. How many times do people walk around their house with the light off in the middle of the night, especially when the house has a bad spirit. The failure of the wife to watch videos where it is clear that there is something going on. Give me a break. The scenes from the trailer were far more entertaining but obviously made it difficult to create a fourth movie. I recommend that if there is a directors cut with the original scenes in it, wait for it to come out.