Review

Five years after the events in Paranormal Activity 2 Katie and Robbie, wasn't he called Hunter? - have moved into a fairly affluent middle class suburb somewhere in domesticated U.S of A. Which is fine, though naturally they have at least one unseen house guest, however things take a turn for the worse when Katie is rushed to hospital for some unknown reason and Robbie takes to hanging out in the play house across the street.

Fifteen year old Alex, techno geek boyfriend Ben, little brother Wyatt, and the parents are about to take a walk on the wild side as they somewhat surprisingly take Robbie in while Katie is away. Robbie strikes up a disturbing relationship with Wyatt, who eventually takes to calling himself Hunter, and strange things are happening around the house. Toby plays it rough, it's not tiddly winks in this franchise, and things rush to a shattering climax. Let's poke and prod the latest in the hugely successful PA franchise.

Strangely Paranormal Activity is one of the few franchises where I have caught each new movie at the cinema rather than giving up and taking the DVD route after the first couple of films. Horror is notorious for overcooking the golden goose in the sequel market being the reason. I was pretty impressed with the original movie, wasn't as put off with the second as some people seem to have been, and absolutely rocked out to the third movie. Unfortunately Paranormal Activity 4 is perhaps where the friendship ends as I have to admit to a tad of boredom through the first half of the flick, is there a word for being cynical about the PA franchise? Oh who am I kidding I will of course trudge in to catch the fifth movie as this one did enough through the final twenty minutes to keep me at least in phone contact.

Guess I should explain the boredom bit right up front here. There was a time in the franchise when doors opening or closing by themselves, chandeliers moving as if in a breeze, and heavy footsteps from something unseen worked like a one legged paper hanger. However by the fourth movie I'm getting tired with these attempts to scare the Audience into submission and want something new in my franchise diet. Unfortunately Directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, who incidentally did the third movie, went with sudden jump shocks. Sure got caught out by the first one, Robbie making a sudden appearance, but once I cottoned on to the tape hiss rising in volume when a scare was about to happen I was pretty immune to the effect. Things did pick up when Katie made the scene however, man one freaky chick from the Samara school of child raising, and I was having a hoot with the final twenty or so minutes of the flick, the Directors nail their stuff as things went from disturbing to outright carnage. Man loved me the last couple of shots, though Katie does have a tendency to rush any camera filming when she gets her demon on. Was it just me or has the Coven disturbingly increased in numbers over the years.

It might be the worse entry in the franchise, but it still packs some punches.

So once the scare tactics got underway, and left behind the odd closing door thing, we had something pretty chilling going down. Seems however a lot of people wanted more mythology with their scares and didn't believe they got it! Are they dialling into the PA franchise, don't they know what the movies are about? Anybody who honestly believes they are going to get revelations akin to Moses delivering the Ten Commandments clearly hasn't been following this series. What we do get is tantalising hints about the Coven, sign of a circle in a triangle, which gets dropped pretty quickly and not revisited, more on why Toby goes all paedo Demon, and of course an update on just what happened with Katie and Hunter. Not a bad result when you think about, and yes we are talking a different story line here that extends passed the immediate family.

As usual we get the various cameras, and those static camera night time shots that made the original movie a torture to sit through. You just knew something chilling was about to happen, but were never quite sure which camera was going to throw the activity in your direction. This time we get computer cameras galore, three of them from memory, but I was slightly perplexed by what camera was in the lounge room, did Ben set one up? Anyways new this time round was voiced doors, "front door open", "back door open" that added to the fun times though underused for mine. But the big novelty item this time round was an Xbox Kinect and an infrared setting on a camera which made visible motion sensing lights throughout the lounge room. Excellent usage there, though adding a few more questions to the already bulging unanswered file. Of course we get plenty of hand held camera action, but got to say no one films themselves as much as this family, the fracking camera is never off for a minute. The previous three movies justified having constant surveillance going down, PA4 is simply too lazy to try to build a reasonable reason. Oh and some of the camera shaking is nauseating, even low cost cameras in this country come with built in stabilisers.

Okay so there are a few problems with the movie, and some unexplained occurrences that make you wonder if the script writers reviewed what they wrote. Who was Wyatt's nocturnal companion when he went lounge room at 3am, picked up on infrared, and what exactly was the implication? How come Mom, home alone, didn't notice a strange woman on her sofa? And why doesn't this family ever listen to each other, you have weird stuff going down but no one actually takes time out of their self centered space to follow through on what others are saying.

There's a bit of violence going down, Toby does his impression of Edward Cullen when it comes to handling the ladies, so be prepared for some neck twisting, body throwing, camera crashing good times.

As usual with this franchise T&A doesn't take a front row set. Actually thinking about it, pretty prim and proper through four movies, clearly the exploitation bus hasn't arrived yet.

Katie Featherston (Katie), the franchise mascot, is once again on with a slightly chilling weird performance that underlined the fact that Paranormal Activity will go places other movies won't. I was equally impressed with Kathryn Newton (Alex) who is pretty much the focal character of the movie for about 90% of the running time. Also worth mentioning is Matt Shively (Ben) who adds some well needed lighter moments to proceedings.

There were aspects to Paranormal Activity 4 that I enjoyed, a creepy kid walking around a house at 3am talking to an invisible friend is always chilling, but for the first time in the franchise I was slightly bored with things. Through the first third of the movie we got the exact same scare tactics as the previous three have lived off, only this time round the scares were slightly boring. Things do heat up however as the family come under direct attack, but the pacing is all over the shop till the final twenty or so minutes when the Audience really do get a wild fun park ride of delights. Guess for the most part I was wondering why Alex kept her computer camera going, even when she wasn't on skype, or was filming with a hand held as she was in physical danger, that friends and neighbours was one aspect that took me out of the movie on a couple of occasions. I got some snippets of lore sent my way but unfortunately the exposé was either edited out or the script Writers forget about that aspect of the movie. Not entirely sure I'll catch the fifth movie at the cinema, but for sure will dial in the disc to see where things go. Guess I would recommend this one to fans of the franchise only, or for anyone that hasn't seen the previous movies as it'll be all new and shining.

After much consideration I'm pretty cool with PA4 it has some issues, does anyone film themselves as much as apparently Seppo families do? - but overall you are at least assured of one undie changing moment per movie. For what it's worth I'm pleased the franchise is prepared to take some risks, alienate some fans, and do something different to the 101 tween horror lite flicks Boredwood throws at us each year.