The first Paranormal Activity cost a mere $15,000 and was filmed in the director’s home.  It was eventually noticed by Spielberg and did well in the theatres, making it one of the most profitable movies ever made, because of the ratio between what it cost to make and what it brought in (about $193 million).  It was as simple, yet effective story about a man and a woman that are haunted by an entity of some sort, so they set up a camera in their house to catch it on tape.  The genre is called ‘found footage’ horror, and this was by no means the first use of it.  One of the most known found footage movies was The Blair Witch Project, and they took it so far as to suggest in the marketing that it actually WAS found footage, which fooled more than one movie goer.  Blair Witch was also one of the most profitable movies ever made, for the same low budget to big returns ratio.

Anyway, Paranormal Activity 3 came out last weekend, and it surprised everyone by doing box office boffo --- $54 million in the opening weekend.  It set the record for fall releases as well as biggest horror opening.  But is it any good?

This time around, it’s directed by Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost, who you may remember from the excellent Facebook mystery documentary, Catfish (check it out if you haven’t seen it!).  Paranormal 3 is a prequel --- if you remember Paranormal 1 & 2, the main character Katie made vague reference to something supernatural happening to her as a child --- this is that story.  In 1988, Katie and her sister Kristi make friends with an invisible entity that lives in their home, and cameras are set up to capture the action.

The success of the first movie, scare-wise, was not that things scared you per se --- it was more of a waiting game.  You stare at a dark bedroom as the occupants sleep.  You wait.  Tension rises.  You wait some more.  Tension rises.  You realize you’re on the edge of your seat, and God help you if something does jump out now --- because you’ll soil your pantaloons.  It was arguably pretty effective.

However, there is a guideline in screenwriting called ‘The Law of Diminishing Returns,’ which can mean a few things, but in this situation it refers to the fact that by part three, we’ve seen this gag before.  When you saw the first movie, you didn’t know what was coming or even that you’d be staring at a dark room for three minutes, which made your blood pressure rise.  Now you are aware of the matrix…er…formula.  It becomes less effective.

All that being said --- I actually thought this movie worked for the most part.  The dread builds well and the scares were bounce-out-of-your-seat freaky.  The budget is obviously bigger now, so they can throw some couches around and do some things they couldn’t do before.  And though I love a good gory movie, I also like that these movies can scare you with your own imagination and very little gore.  As well, the movie is actually quite a bit funnier than its predecessors.  I would suffer to say that Paranormal Activity 3 was better than number two. 

I think they should quit while they’re ahead, unlike the Saw franchise, which quickly became a parody of itself.  If they want this trilogy to live in the ages, they should end it now.  It’s a paper-thin concept, so even milking it for three movies is probably too much, let alone two.

3 Dorks out of 5 on the Geek-o-Meter.  It’s not going to change the landscape of horror movies, but if you’re looking to scare the beejesus out of yourself this Halloween week, it’s a fun choice.