It's the desperation move for a franchise perceived to be "in trouble" - and in this case, wholly unnecessary. When last we left the players of Paranormal Activity, head harpy Kate (Katie Feartherston) had become possessed by her sister Kristi's (Sprague Grayden) veiled voodoo nonsense. To return the favor, she visited their home in the wee hours and killed everyone -- except her infant nephew, whom she then removed from his crib and disappeared with. Since the first two films happened more or less simultaneously in the time line, we are ripe to revisit the ending of Part 2 and figure out what happened to our villainess and her tiny hostage.
But no -- Paranormal Activity 3 is going the true "prequel" route, giving us a late '80s overview of how the young Kate and Kristi (Chloe Cserngey and Jessica Tyler Brown, respectively) became targets of the sinister and supernatural in the first place. It's 1988, and the siblings think they've discovered a friendly ghost in their midst. Nicknamed "Toby," the girl's mother Julie (Lauren Bittner) believes it just an imaginary friend, part of growing up. But her wedding photographer boyfriend Dennis (Christopher Nicholas Smith) thinks otherwise. So he sets up cameras around the house to see if he can capture any spirit activity. What his tapes reveal set the groundwork for all the horror to come.
Apparently, the aforementioned pathetic prequel rule has an exception. Paranormal Activity 3 is, hands down, the best installment in the series. It contains a half dozen solid shocks surrounded by a story that goes a long way toward establishing a viable mythology without going completely loopy. Sure, there are plot holes a million miles wide (why won't the girls' mother watch the telling videotapes?) and gaps in logic that will give you conniptions (can't find your family in a spooky, foreign place? Don't call 911!), only this time around, we don't really mind. This is still an exercise in sitting around and waiting for something to happen, but new directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman (of Catfish fame) start with the scary stuff early and rarely let up.First off, we are given a real narrative and identifiable characters to follow. This is a family in peril. Dennis just wants to find out what's going on while Julie shows the proper amount of moderated concern for her kids. As for the little girls, they are believable without being cutesy or precocious. During a particularly dark night in their bedroom, the fear feels very real. Elsewhere, a decent level of dread is created, suspense built out of our knowledge of the previous films along with the unknown terrors that lie within. While it never becomes unbearable in its twisted fear, it does deliver on the jump-out-of-your-seat scale.
Still, this remains a limited fright fest, a work where the audience's anticipation is as necessary as what ends up on the screen. There is nothing inherently horrifying about random noises in the day or night. That these sounds end up delivering quality jolts is what turns this trifle into a decent scary movie. Add in the ending, which tries its damnedest to provide a reason for all this poltergeist nonsense, and you've got an offshoot that actually beats the original in both style and substance. The first Paranormal Activity was just a bunch of pointless home movies. Part 2 elevated the material a bit. This third installment may be the cliched charm, but it also leaves open the possibility of future episodes. If they're all as well done as this, the franchise has the chance of going from desperate to delightful.
