MOVIE REVIEW - Paranormal Activity 4

Here we go again!   More Paranormal Activity and this time it's the fourth installment of this really landmark film series.

Let's look at the history here.  Paranormal Activity was a very good movie and was one of the really feel good cinematic achievements ever.   An unknown, young filmmaker makes this little movie basically in his condo.  He hires two actors, and does it for about $12,000.  And of course goes on to bring in a couple hundred million bucks.   Amazing, for this little hand held camera flick that gave us all a jolt and made us wonder what is really going on in our houses in the middle of the night.

Even PA2 was livable.  More of the same, and a bit more intense.  Brought in more dough, and seemed like a good idea at the time.   Of course, it had to give way to PA3 which began the watering down of this original good idea.  Now it's PA4, and PA1 seems like a long, long time ago.

OK, enough of the hand held, herky-jerky point of view camera shots in the middle of the night.  PA4 has the story moving on to a new family that gets to go through the bumps in the night, and the unexplained stuff at 3AM.  And you know what?  I'm bored.  Period.  I'm bored to tears.  Yet another flick where web cams are set up all night with the time stamp in the corner watching basically nothing happen night after night after night.   Good gravy, can't we think of anything else to do?  But it seems this series has one idea and it's going to ride it like a thoroughbred till we stop going.

This time they use web cams, smart phones, and laptops as cameras in our story, and it is virtually all filmed in the middle of the night again.  Yes, there are a few jolts and a few heart pounding moments, but they have lost their allure, and I fear for good.  It's just too much of a good idea.  It has worn out it's welcome.  And again for the third time in a row, it's 90 minutes of waiting for a payoff that never comes.  But there's a bunch of money to be made and that's a big temptation.  This troupe can do good work and has with other movies and that's where we should go. 

Paranormal Activity 4.    Let's move on.  Please.