Paranormal Activity 4 (2012)

Paranormal Activity 4

Rating: 3 stars out of 5.

Overview: The series continues to get bigger and wilder with its complicated storyline, but PA4 veers from the tradition of the first 3 films enough to make it a genuinely exciting film to watch. It admirably avoids many of the downfalls that plagued Paranormal Activity 3.

Notice: No spoilers beyond basic expository information.

After watching the astoundingly terrifying Atrocious last weekend and being reunited with what true found footage film-making is all about, I was apprehensive about what Paranormal Activity 4 may be like. I knew it could never live up to the precedent so recently set by Atrocious. And sure enough, Paranormal Activity 4 is the least scary of all the Paranormal Activity films thus far. Never the less, the film really managed to impress me. I enjoyed it much more than the third film and I'm actually excited about seeing Paranormal Activity 5 next year (god willing). 

While PA3 was scarier, it was basically existing on borrowed ground. It retained the plot progression of the first two films while never even approaching the level of scares they achieved. So it felt like an exceedingly well-made Asylum film, the production values were good but it's a story you've already seen told, and told better. 

I read one review which stated PA4 is the first of the series to play it safe. On the contrary, PA4 was the first of the sequels to veer from the formula of the original film. When all you're dealing with is the demon, you pretty much know how it's inevitably going to end. After the first film you know pretty much how the demon operates and what to expect. But the fourth film enters a number of new elements which made the story's progression far less foreseeable, and for that I found this a very exciting film to watch.

The third film jumped the shark by injecting convoluted mythos into a series which had previously succeeded on a primal, intuitive level. But the fourth film transcended the misstep of the third by taking it even further and severing the series from its instinctual roots. In doing so it became something different entirely, and managed to be good on its own merits. No, it's certainly not as good as the first two PA films, but it was a very interesting movie, and it impressed me. I am actually really excited to be invested in the Paranormal Activity franchise again after the frustrating mess of misfires that confounded Paranormal Activity 3. 

At this point the Paranormal Activity mythos has become overwrought, bizarre, and a little bit nonsensical. But with PA4 it's finally reached that sweet spot where it's crazy enough to be interesting, without being too campy to take seriously. It's clear that the series will never return to the terror-inducing simplicity which made it famous in the first place, but that may be for the best, as it was never liable to recapture the spark of the first two films anyway. I'm genuinely excited to see it get even bigger and wilder as the film series goes on, because now I'm confident they can do it without pissing all over the franchise. It's gone into the territory where it's silly but still cool.