Film Review: Paranormal Activity 4

Paranormal Activity 4. Rated M (horror theme, violence and coarse language). 88 minutes. Directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman. Screenplay by Christopher Landon.

Verdict: It’s probably the last gasp for the Paranormal Activity franchise as it takes on Rosemary’s Baby – and loses.

The ghost of The Blair Witch Project (1999) has haunted just about every offering from independent filmmakers playing around with projects from the psychological horror genre. Famous for, among other achievements, cutting tyro filmmakers loose from big budgets and motion picture studio funding, Blair Witch made the ‘found footage’ and wobbly, jump cut, hand-held camera work its signature and raked in more than $250 million at the box office.

Fade in Paranormal Activity (2009), in which Katie (Katie Featherston) and her boyfriend Micah (Micah Sloat) set up a camera to record the supernatural hi-jinks throughout their very obviously haunted house in an attempt to find out exactly what is going on while they sleep. At turns terrifying and always disturbing, horror aficionados flocked to the cinema to be scared witless by a new addition to their beloved genre. So successful was the first film that prequels Paranormal Activity 2 (2010) and Paranormal Activity 3 (2011) were rolled out in rapid succession – each adding new backstory to the franchise.

As far as this fourth film is concerned, anyone who hasn’t seen the first three will be completely lost. Schulman and Joost (who shared the directing credits for Paranormal Activity 3) and Landon (Paranormal Activity 2 and 3) bring an entertaining use of video chat and infrared tracking dots (pictured, which lend the film a brilliant but over-used visual aesthetic) to the screen, but little else. While there is certainly truckloads of tension, the scares here are utterly formulaic and old hat, before finally disintegrating into disappointingly derivative and uncontrollable mayhem.

Kathryn Newton (Alex) and Matt Shively (Ben) are excellent as the young couple who set up a vast network of laptops to capture the shenanigans, while Brady Allen (Robbie) and Aiden Lovekamp (Wyatt) give admirable performances as the young boys who may be more than they seem. Katie Featherstone’s Katie (the only character who has appeared in all four films) stalks about the place in a strangely predictable fashion, and only succeeds in signalling the end of new ideas for this tired old franchise.

While fans will more than likely love it, newcomers to the concept should probably have a DVD marathon of the first three films before taking it on – while faint-hearted scaredy cats should give it a miss completely. As conventional as it all seems, it is also unrelievedly tense, with more than a few “she’s behind the laptop when you close it” moments that will successfully scare you witless.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.