"Paranormal Activity 3" Review

"Paranormal Activity 3" is not as good as the first film, but it still creeped me out.

Kristi and Katie's childhood is filmed by their mother's boyfriend, Dennis (Christopher Nicholas Smith). He is messing around with his new camera when an earthquake is caught on tape. Looking at the footage, he sees some dust settling in mid-air.

Kristi (Jessica Tyler Brown), who is five or six years old in this film, has an imaginary friend named Toby, and Dennis is starting to think that maybe this might be something real. To investigate, he purchases more video cameras and places them in different areas of the house.

What he finds is that Kristi wakes up at night and talks to someone. When asked about this, she does not give a lot of information and says he does not want her to talk about it.

Strange things start happening, and Dennis sees it all on tape. He at first does not want to tell Julie (Lauren Bittner), his significant other. However, as it becomes more dangerous, he realizes something needs to be done about it.

This film is my second favorite in the series. The first film is definitely the best, and I stand by my opinion that sequels were never necessary. With that being said, some were made, and this particular one had some very creepy moments.

One of them is a scene involving Katie (Chloe Csengery) playing "Bloody Mary" in the bathroom with Dennis' friend Randy (Dustin Ingram). It is very creepy, and there are other great scenes like it.

Though there are some scary moments, there are others that show the filmmakers' desperation to scare the audience. There are several scenes in which something jumps out. Sometimes the demon does so, but there is at least one time I can remember in which it is a character who is not supposed to be scary. That part made me jump the highest, and it felt cheap. I was not really scared. I was startled.

I do not understand why it resorts to jump scares. There are a lot of scenes that are scary just because of the content, and the first "Paranormal Activity's" ability to be that way is part of what makes it great.

Another great thing about this film is the child actors. A lot of times, because they lack  experience, they can bog the movie down. In this movie, Chloe Csengery as Katie and Jessica Tyler Brown as Kristi both do really well in their roles. They reacted to situations in realistic ways, and it was not simply line memorization for them.

The main thing I do not like about this movie is the way it ends. It left me confused. It is clear the movie tried to be more complicated than it should have been.

I give this movie four out of five stars. According to my rating system, I would not have been disappointed seeing this in theatres. It is not nearly as good as the first film, but there are parts that scared me.

Content: Rated R. There is moderate language including "F" words. There is sexual content and a scene of sexuality. There are also disturbing images including some satanic symbols.

For more details on what I base my ratings off of, visit http://criticalchristopher.blogspot.com/2014/01/defining-rating-criteria.html