Never so quickly have I seen a franchise get whored out in Hollywood. A couple of years ago the world was hit with Paranormal Activity, making you wonder what happens when you're asleep. It's the most successful independent movie ever, with a small budget of fifteen thousand and making over a hundred million is just incredible. But with big hype comes a lot of back lash. I personally loved that film and it's one of my favorite horror movies, taking the simplicity of what's in the dark fears from our childhood and making our imaginations go crazy. Since the film was a huge success, Hollywood naturally called on a sequel. Paranormal Activity 2 was released a year later, pretty much claiming the Saw franchise money. Paranormal Activity 2 was an alright film, it wasn't as scary because we knew what to expect and with bigger budget the effects could be a little too over the top at times. Paranormal Activity 3 was advertised and I was thinking that this film was a mistake, but I was just curious where they were taking the story so I saw it opening night and this film blew me away. What a scary movie and so perfect to add to the franchise making me want plenty more.

In 1988, young Katie and Kristi live with their mother, Julie, and her boyfriend, Dennis. Kristi begins interacting with an invisible friend named Toby. Dennis notices that since Kristi's friend appeared, strange things have been happening in the house. While reviewing some footage later, Dennis notices a strange incident with presence being shown on camera. He invites his friend Randy over to view the footage, who suggests that Dennis place cameras throughout the house to capture any other incidents. After more disturbed nights and strange occurrences, Dennis discovers a strange symbol in the girls' closet. He finds the same symbol on a picture of women in a book about mysticism. Dennis explains to Julie that the symbol belonged to a witches coven that brainwashed young girls into having sons. Thus explaining more about the two previous films.

A couple of flaws with the film being that one being based in 1988, the film sure does look very crisp with it's picture. Wonder where the guy got his video, obviously not Wal Mart. Secondly, there are still some questions left unanswered, maybe due to the overwhelming success of the first film the writers had to do what they could with Katie's story. Only explanation being in this film is that the cult brainwashes people, so maybe Katie and Kristi had a different story in the previous films due to the spell. However, this film scared the heck out of me, which takes a lot. The beginning does start off a little silly to me, since again, you know what is going to happen. But not even 25 minutes into the film, it does pick up again. The last fifteen minutes had me frozen to my seat. A lot of people are complaining that the trailer has completely different scenes than from the movie, I personally like it that way because it keeps the film fresh and has you guessing. The "bloody Mary" scene in the film is much more scary than in the trailer in my opinion. Paranormal Activity 3 really did raise the bar and I'm so glad. The characters a likable and the effects are actually top notch and done effectively. There's a scene with the babysitter where the demon is wearing a blanket and is standing right behind her, believe me you'll have such major goose bumps from that scene. If you like scary movies, you're going to love this film, I can't wait for the fourth one and I'm glad that we finally went back to the basics of a good ghost story. Though my suggestions to the characters: stop filming the demon! That's obviously ticking him off.

8/10

To be honest, I never liked Paranormal Activity movies. It's about people who lived in a house with cameras and there are evil spirits haunting them then all of the events are caught on tape. The idea is interesting but the execution always end up being unsatisfying. Paranormal Activity 3 is the very beginning of the series. It's not actually a prequel. It's more of a backward trilogy to make the ending of the rest of the Paranormal Activity films mysterious. Although, the twist is a little bit predictable but Paranormal Activity 3 has a decent story to tell with these found footage. And it really has the scares. Finally, this series has a genuine scare.

Paranormal Activity 3 reveals all the mysteries of the first two movies. Unlike the first two, instead of watching the lives of these people and wait for the spirits to come out, this one really tells a story through the videos. The story is not anything new though but the execution is decent. The second Paranormal Activity narrates almost everything in the story. Here you don't need it, you just have to look at the video footage to know the story.

Aside from its storytelling, Paranormal Activity is all about the scares. They improved the scares by moderating the slow burns and keep the objects floating. The ghosts aren't quite invisible like the first two. Here, it's campy. You can see its shadows. And of course, there's a lot of threat from the ghost. The scares are more than just jump scares. It has more terror and gumption to the thrills which is kinda fun. The cameras are well shot. Everything is well made. But the twist remains predictable for some reason.

Paranormal Activity 3 is not earning the fear anymore. It's now earning the scares. It's great to see Paranormal Activity with exact scares than wait for more than five minutes to be scared. It's not the scariest horror movie of the year but it's the best part of the series and also the most decent horror of the year. I still wanna see the parts on the trailer that wasn't show in the actual film but Paranormal Activity 3 is satisfying enough in its short runtime. Decent enough as a found-footage-horror-film.

Katie (Katie Featherston) gives a box of old VHS tapes to her pregnant sister Kristi Rey (Sprague Grayden). There are a lot of old footage from their childhood. The franchise is going further back in time. This one takes place mostly in their long forgotten distant childhood.

The VHS tapes are a good way to bring this into Katie and Kristi's childhood. I understand the security camera is the style of the franchise. I would have been fine without that part of the franchise for this prequel. Also going back to their childhood means losing better actors like Grayden. I would hope the franchise had become big enough to get big time actors for the lead roles. The little girls are fine. The two adult roles are too regular folk-like. Lauren Bittner and Christopher Nicholas Smith are not big enough to lead. It's time this franchise stop thinking itself as a small time indie. The movie has a few scary moments especially with the kids. Otherwise the scares are not as compelling.