Paranormal Activity 4

Starring: Kathryn Newton, Matt Shively, Katie Featherston, Alexondra Lee, Stephen Dunham, Sprague Grayden
Directed by: Henry Joost, Ariel Schulman
Rating: R
Genre: Horror
2012

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: A girl (Kathryn Newton) and her family witness strange events in their house after a little boy from across the street starts hanging out at their house.

Review:

Tim: I know I'm being way to kind on Paranormal Activity 4. This is a movie I should probably hate. There's lots of reasons why I should dislike it. There's virtually no story. The movie follows the exact same format as the previous films. There's nothing new or exciting here. And yet, despite all of that, there's something entertaining about watching these movies. I probably should have hated this film, but I didn't.

There are a lot of problems here. More so than in any of the previous films, it was very obvious that there was little to no plot here. It felt like an incredibly lazy effort on the part of the writers. We're introduced to new characters, and there's only the smallest shreds of a plot to hold them together. Plus, the film follows the exact same format as all the others- we see people filming themselves, very small but strange things start happening. They grow in intensity, until the big finish, where we actually almost sort-of see something. We've seen this exact thing over and over again. That's the biggest flaw of the film, and the main reason I didn't like this movie more- we got more of the same, nothing particularly new (in terms of plot, advancing the overall franchise story, etc).

What we did get "new" at least made this film feel a little different. We got new characters. Most of them are pretty terrible, but I did enjoy the relationship of Alex and Ben (played by Kathryn Newton and Matt Shively). They just seemed like normal kids. I wouldn't say either was a particularly gifted actor, but they brought a nice realism to the parts. Outside of them, the little kids are kind of creepy, which is always what you want. The parents were moronic and underdeveloped, however. I really did not care for either one of them, as they just didn't work well in this film. We were never given a reason to care even a little about either of them. I did appreciate that original star Katie Featherston showed up much more in this film than the previous movies. We need more of her in this franchise.

I appreciated the new way to record video of the house. That's always been one of the biggest plot holes in all these movies- why would normal people spend that much time filming themselves? It never really made much sense. In this film, we have our lead characters recording video through their laptops. I'm not sure exactly how realistic this is, but it was clever way to explain all the video evidence- set up every laptop in the house to continually record video through the webcams. I appreciated the unique approach. However, the whole thing is completely ridiculous. If I set all the computers in my house to record video, they would mostly be filming the wall or a corner or something. How many people have their laptops facing the open room? It's ridiculous.

One thing I enjoyed about the previous films in this franchise is that you never knew what was going to happen. You're watching these videos, and you assume there is a reason you're watching them. I would scan the whole room, looking for a shadow, or something moving. I never really knew what to expect. This film, unfortunately, abuses that. We have so much of the film where nothing happens, when they are creating that suspense with no real payoff. Nothing of any real interest happens until the big climax, and even then, it's over far too quickly. For the first time, I started to feel manipulated. The constant state of suspense was fun previously, but it eventually grows tiresome.

I've given you more than enough evidence to suggest this film is awful. I would probably agree that Paranormal Activity 4 is the weakest film in the franchise. And yet, I still had some fun watching this film. Even though it got annoying, I still held my breath during a few scenes, wondering what the heck was going on. That state of suspense, no matter how manufactured, was still somewhat enjoyable. As a whole, though, this is franchise that started strong, but has really lost it's edge. I will probably watch every sequel that comes out, but I'm starting to hope it all ends here (it won't).

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 6



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Paranormal Activity, Paranormal Activity 2, Paranormal Activity 3, Dark Skies, The Blair Witch Project, Poltergeist, The Exorcist