Paranormal Activity 4

The first “Paranormal Activity” was a surprisingly satisfying novelty. The second improved on the first by deepening the story and ramping up the scares. The third provided even more breadth and depth while achieving new levels of scariness by relying less on the found-footage gimmick.

Unfortunately, “Paranormal Activity 4” is much more like the first film than the third.
Rather than finding new ways to scare the audience, the latest film regresses to the methods of the original, with doors closing on their own, shadowy figures, floating household objects and the like.

This has been effective for the series in the past, but several factors make it stunningly ineffective here.

Like its predecessors, “Paranormal Activity 4” quickly provides a semi-plausible explanation for the existence of found footage that makes up the movie. This time, webcams around the house capture mildly creepy events.

Unfortunately, the paranormal activity they capture really isn’t that creepy.
This could be due in part to audiences growing accustomed to the series’s tropes, but, regardless, none of the nocturnal occurrences manage to achieve a solid scare.

This fact is made worse because the characters almost never watch the footage they recorded. Even if the footage captured terrifying events in the night, the characters probably wouldn’t notice.

What’s worse, even when they do watch footage or experience supernatural phenomena while they’re awake, the characters simply don’t get scared.

Instead, their reactions are often more akin to bemusement or mild perplexity, devoid of any sign of real fear. This ineffectual approach to suspense building is further sabotaged by frequent laughs at the humorous dialogue — laughs that would serve as comic relief, if there was any tension to relieve.

The end result is a film that is much funnier than it is scary, a major disappointment for people who plunked down their money expecting to be scared. The film doesn’t get scary until its final 15 seconds, and they don’t even come close to justifying the cost
of a ticket.

Stay away. You have been warned.

By Corin Chellberg