Aylmer to Zazzoo and Beyond: Paranormal Activity 4

Friday, October 19, 2012

Paranormal Activity 4 - Review

Paranormal Activity 4
(2012)
Horror
88 min.

Rated: R Frightening images and situations, violence and language What parents should know
Grade: C

Directors: Henry Joost, Ariel Schulman
Writers: Christopher Landon (screenplay), Chad Feehan (story)
Stars: Katie Featherston, Kathryn Newton and Matt Shively | See full cast and crew

It has been five years since the disappearance of Katie and Hunter, and a suburban family witness strange events in their neighborhood when a woman and a mysterious child move in.

I don't remember seeing the first film in the Paranormal Activity (PA) franchise, but I did see PA2 and PA3 (which was sort of a prequel to the series). PA4 cost only $6 million to make so it's a guaranteed moneymaker, the previous films have earned $87 to $109 million.

This latest episode takes place five years after PA2, which ends with Katie kidnapping her nephew Hunter. In PA4 we fast forward to November 2011 from Carlsbad, California to Henderson, Nevada we are introduced to Alex and her family, mom Holly (Alexondra Lee), dad Doug (Stephen Dunham), little brother, Wyatt (Aiden Lovekamp) and her boyfriend Ben (Matt Shively). In the house across the street lives the 'creepy little boy' Robbie (Brady Allen) who wanders around the neighborhood at all hours of the night and his seemingly negligent mom Katie (Katie Featherston).

One night here is some commotion across the street, Katie is taken to the hospital leaving Robbie all alone with no one to take care of him. Holly takes him in for a few days until Katie gets out of the hospital. As soon as Robbie moves in strange things start happening, especially in the middle of the night...BOO! Yeah, that's how it happens, they lull you to distraction with cameras showing empty rooms and then...BOO! There are plenty of these 'BOO!' moments, things going boom in the night and moving shadows.

Directed by the same team as PA3, Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, from a story by Chad Feehan and screenplay by series regular Christopher Landon, PA4's strength is that it feels very contemporary. The use of computer webcams, Skype and the shaky, wobbly sensation of backward motion coming from someone carrying a laptop while walking and chatting, is at the same time both disorienting and familiar. Something new, however, is the incorporation of a video game called Kinect. Especially effective is the visual motif of small beams of light from the video game system which projects an eerie star field in a darkened room.

The PA franchise remakes itself this time focusing on teens, you know, the kind that parents don't really listen to, especially when they complain about things that are scaring them. In one scene Alex and Ben show her dad a moving shadowy figure they recorded on their webcam and Doug simply says, 'That is so cool...amazing the things you kids can do'.

Just roll with it, this is not 'high art' it's a horror movie. Get your soda, Milk Duds and popcorn and sit down in a dark theater and wait for....BOO! After you've brushed the spilled popcorn off of your lap...BOO! Sense a pattern here? OK then, you know what to expect. Also be advised that there is the use of the F word and other profanities which are completely unnecessary and do nothing to enhance the story or film.

PA4′s post-credits scene is only about 30 seconds long and takes place inside a little bodega-type store using security camera footage. A woman arrives and quickly starts telling everyone, in Spanish, to leave and “This is only the beginning.” Everyone quickly flees. The post-credits scene is a teaser for the upcoming ‘Paranormal Activity’ spinoff intended for the Latino audience. Latino audiences have been huge for the franchise so Paramount decided to make a film centered around Latino-Catholic mythology. Christopher Landon, who wrote the 2nd and 3rd ‘Paranormal,’ movies will direct this still untitled project that isn’t called a sequel but more of a “cousin” to the original films. Despite the Spanish language in the post-credits scene, the Latino ‘Paranormal Activity’ movie will be in English.

To catch you up to speed, below is a 3 minute short that puts all the PA film events in chronological order for your...shall we say edification.

Plot

Spoiler Alert

(via Wikipedia)

Alex (Kathryn Newton) films her younger brother Wyatt's soccer match. At Alex's house, she shows her boyfriend Ben (Matt Shively) the treehouse in the garden. Here they discover Robbie, the neighbor's child. Puzzled with why he is here, she takes him back to his own house across the road. In the early hours of the next morning, Alex hears an ambulance outside at Robbie's house. The next day Robbie turns up at the house after Alex's mom Holly (Alexondra Lee) offered to look after him for a few days because his mother went into the hospital. Later on in the day Alex finds Wyatt and Robbie in her treehouse talking to Robbie's invisible friend. In the evening Wyatt is playing multi-player on the Kinect by himself with Robbie sitting on the sofa.

Ben asks who Wyatt is playing with and Robbie tells him it's his friend. When Alex arrives in the lounge Ben turns the lights off in the lounge and shows Wyatt through the camera the infra-red tracking dots. As Alex, Ben and Wyatt dance in the dark and Robbie sits on the sofa, the camera picks up something moving on the sofa next to him.

The next day Ben shows Alex that his computer automatically records their webcam chats and in the middle of the night while Alex was sleeping, Robbie came in and slept next to her. He suggests that he can set up laptops around the house to record everything. Over the next couple of days strange occurrences happen around the house, such as Robbie waking up in the middle of the night and talking to the TV, Robbie and Wyatt running around the house in the early hours of the morning chasing a silhouette of a small child figure. Robbie draws a strange symbol on Wyatt's back, which Alex later finds to be part of an old cult (first appeared in Paranormal Activity 3). One night Alex notices several black cars outside Robbie's house across the street; upon investigating, she discovers that there are several women in black garb entering the house. She is confronted immediately by one of these women and flees the scene. When alone in the house Alex hears noises and follows them to the hallway where the chandelier falls down from the ceiling and smashes into the floor. Her father Doug (Stephen Dunham) later blames this on the light fitters, but Alex is suspicious of Robbie.

The next day she sees from her bedroom window that Robbie and Wyatt have ran across to his house. Alex follows them to discover that Robbie's mother is actually home, who is Katie (Katie Featherston). After Alex takes Wyatt back home he tells her that Katie told him he was adopted like Robbie. Alex questions her parents about Wyatt's real parents but they refuse to say anything. Wyatt later on then talks to an invisible figure, we only hear Wyatt's responses but Wyatt says that his name isn't Hunter. During this conversation a small invisible person (visible due to the tracking dots) is approaching him. He later insists that his name is Hunter. At several points, Katie sneaks into the house to talk to Hunter, telling him she'll be with him until he's "ready." In the evening Wyatt appears in Alex's room and Alex levitates while sleeping, into the air.

The next day when Alex's mother is downstairs alone in the house and starts to hear strange noises. Katie appears in the house and heads upstairs. When Alex's mother enters the lounge an unseen entity suddenly picks her up before dropping her onto the floor, instantly killing her. Katie comes back downstairs and drags her body off screen. Some time later Ben arrives at the house to discover no one is home. He goes to view the footage in Alex's bedroom but Katie appears and snaps his neck. Katie finds Wyatt in the house and tells him that he is Hunter.

Alex and her father arrive back home, and he thinks he sees Alex's mother with Wyatt walking to Katie's house. As he goes to explore Alex goes home to discover Ben's body before. She runs out of the house and over to Katie's house to warn her dad, but witnesses him being dragged violently through the house by the unseen entity. She runs to a bedroom at the far end of the house but can't find his body. As she turns around to head back out Katie appears who storms forwards, demonically screaming to Alex. Alex quickly runs and climbs out of the window where she discovers Wyatt standing outside. Just as she is about to run away with Wyatt, numerous blank-faced people appear in Katie's garden. Alex turns the other way only to be attacked by a screaming Katie before the camera cuts out.

In a post credits scene, someone is recording outside a store in what appears to be Mexico, with a man speaking in Spanish. He enters the store, moving around the aisles saying "witchcraft". An elderly woman suddenly appears and says "this is only the beginning" in Spanish, and the man stumbles out of the store.