The film features Katie Featherston, who starred in the first film, and had cameos in the other two. With the way the fourth turned out, let’s all hope that’s not true.Paranormal Activity 4 is a 2012 American found footage supernatural horror film, directed by Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost and written by Christopher B. Word is that a fifth installment of “Paranormal Activity” is in the works. The third tried to show the origin of the curse haunting Katie and her family, but the fourth holds absolutely nothing of interest.Īllen radiates that certain spook-factor, but the era of eerie children in the horror genre is dead (at least temporarily), and one disturbing child is not enough to keep this film afloat. The second rode the high of that first and mastered the art of building tension. The first was a surprise since no one knew what to expect (thanks to the brilliant marketing scheme that showed absolutely no part of the film in the trailer). Originality isn’t the strong suit of these home-video type films, but this goes from unoriginal to plain old derivative.Įach installment of the “Paranormal Activity” series has had something to offer until now. There are no twists or turns - from the moment Robbie arrives on his neighbor’s doorstep, everything proceeds exactly as you’d imagine. They may as well have had a leak in the roof for all the alarm they show.Įven worse than the lack of heart-pounding moments is the complete disaster that is the storyline. Honestly, this movie is not even frightening enough to scare the characters - for most of the film they seem more mildly concerned than anything else. The creepiest thing was probably the use of Xbox Kinect infrared dots (used to show some invisible figure moving around), which was a genuinely clever concept, but even that was only truly startling the first time. However, these moments don’t come until about two-thirds of the way into the movie, and even then it’s nothing that will keep you up at night. To be sure, there are a few times when only the bravest of individuals wouldn’t have jumped out of their skin. That’s not to say there weren’t any startling moments. What would have been really beneficial would have been some genuine horror. However, a teen romance in a horror movie is kind of like finding a French fry in an order of onion rings - a nice bonus, but not why you bought the food. They were even absurdly likeable, which is a rarity for teens in a horror movie (though Alex does carry around a handheld camera long past the point at which any sane person would have put it down - a pet peeve for many fans of the “found footage” genre). Surprisingly enough, the relationship between Alex and Ben is one of the best things about the film - they manage to be flirty and funny, plus have excellent chemistry. Here we meet Alex (Kathryn Newton) and her boyfriend Ben (Matt Shively), who start noticing that there’s something a little off about their next door neighbor, Robbie. The film begins with a brief flashback to the second installment, which ended with the ever-creepy Katie Featherstone, played by the actress of the same name, abducting her nephew, Hunter (now Robbie in the fourth installment) (Brady Allen), before returning to the (almost) present day. Unfortunately, the “Paranormal Activity” series has fallen victim to the curse of the too-long continued horror franchise: It has run out of ideas. While no one was expecting it to be cinematic genius, it would have been nice if it was at least a little scary. With Halloween rapidly approaching, it seems inevitable that Hollywood would release another low-cost, high-reward “found footage” film - so “Paranormal Activity 4” was no great surprise.
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