"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

"Paranormal Activity 2" Review

"Paranormal Activity 2" is an unnecessary sequel that tries too hard.

The movie is inappropriately named in that it is technically a prequel rather than a sequel. It is about Katie's sister, Kristi Rey (Sprague Grayden, "White Collar"), who is actually mentioned in the first film. When Kristi and Katie were children, they both felt the demonic presence, and it went off and on for a while.

In this movie, Kristi is living with her infant son, her step-daughter Ali (Molly Ephraim, "Last Man Standing"), and her husband Daniel (Brian Boland). They experience a break-in at the beginning, and they decide to get security cameras. This film is a combination of footage from those cameras and from a home video camera used by Ali.

As more weird things happen, they realize that the break in is probably something else entirely. Kristi is starting to suspect that the demonic presence is coming back to haunt her. Daniel does not seem to believe her. Whenever Kristi or Ali try to prove what is going on by showing tapes, Daniel blows it off as the wind.

Ali figures out through some research a possible reason they are being haunted. Without revealing anything, she is correct about it, and this actually connects this with the first one in an interesting way.

Though the two movies connect, this movie was unnecessary. The first one was obviously not made with more films in mind. It is a found footage film, which means someone shot all the activity in the house. The fact that someone else was doing the same thing right before is a little ridiculous when you think about it.

It seems like in the making of this film, the writers and producers had to rack their brain to come up with some way they can continue the franchise. What they thought up is a movie that is bigger than the first one. They had a bigger budget with $3,000,000, and they decided to get a bigger cast. Instead of making it about one couple, it is about a family. Instead of having footage from only one camera, they managed to write more into the script.

That is precisely why this movie is not nearly as good as the first one. The original "Paranormal Activity" proved Charmin Ultra's catchphrase that "Less is more." There are only two characters who the audience gets to know very well. It is a more intimate experience. It gives off a sense of loneliness, and that adds to the horror.

The one camera also makes it much better in the first one in that if something happens off screen, it is not recorded by anything. The couple has to investigate the aftermath, and it adds more mystery.

I also had a problem with the character Daniel. He is very annoying. He brushes off everything until the very end when it is pretty much too late. The man comes off as overly insensitive. I think this has to do with him being badly written as well as badly acted. In the first film, Micah is also doubtful of everything, but he is more charming and realistic. This might have been because the man who played him was a better actor all around.

I have to give this movie credit, however. It is very interesting to see how it connects with the first film. Even though it was unnecessary, it needed to be made because the producers wanted to make a lot of money from it. With this in mind, what the writers came up with was actually pretty interesting, and there were some legitimately creepy parts. However, the movie still felt like a remake of "Paranormal Activity" with more cameras and more people.

I give this film 2 out of 5 stars. It has its good moments and it is interesting to see the way it connects everything. However, the film as a whole has already been done before, and it was done better. Just watch the first movie.

Content: Rated R. There are a couple scenes with sexual content. There is no nudity, though it shows a woman in a bath naturally censored with bubbles. There is moderate language with several "F" words. There is a little violence especially at the end. There is a little blood at the end, but it is a stain on a character's shirt.

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

"Paranormal Activity" Review

Introduction

I will be reviewing "Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones," here and in the newspaper I write for, "The Utah Statesman." However, from what I understand, one needs see at least the first three films in the franchise to understand it. Because of this, I will be reviewing these movies on this blog.

In the interest of time, I will only write short reviews of the first three films. I will concentrate more time on the one that is coming out this weekend.

Review

"Paranormal Activity" succeeds as a horror film because it uses its simplicity to create a realistic feel.

Katie and Micah (played by actors with the same first names: Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat) are boyfriend and girlfriend living with each other. Before they moved in, Katie neglected to tell Micah that she has had past experience with some kind of presence. She has been visited by some kind of entity, and she does not know what it is. It is revealed in the beginning by a paranormal expert that this presence is demonic.

The presence has been felt off and on in her life. It has been dormant for a while, but she is starting to see weird stuff coming back to visit her. Micah decides to document their life with a video camera to see if what she is saying is true. During the day, he records their day-to-day interactions. By night, he records them as they sleep to see if there is anything out of the ordinary happening.

Each night, something happens. It starts out fairly subtle, but after a while it becomes more and more bizarre.

From beginning to end, this movie is very entertaining. The filmmakers knew that in order to give a good sense of horror, the audience needs an emotional attachment to the characters.

Watching the couple interact is part of what makes it fun. Micah is funny at times because he is sarcastic. He does not seem to believe that there is any such thing as demons, so he does not take anything seriously. Katie, however, knows what she has seen and felt, and she gets really mad when he makes fun of her.

What is interesting about this is the men watching into this movie can relate to Micah and the women to Katie. *I do not mean to make a lot of assumptions, but in my experience, women are usually more scared of horror films than men. Before I saw this movie, the women I talked to thought I was crazy that I would even watch it.

At the beginning of the movie, I felt calm like Micah. However as it progresses, he starts getting more concerned, and I could definitely feel the intensity build itself up.

This film was very cheap to make. The main actors are both not very famous except for in the franchise this film started. Paying them must not have been difficult. The camera is a cheap one that most people can afford. The special effects are also fairly inexpensive in that it mostly involves things moving around. According to IMDB's "Paranormal Activity" page, the estimated budget for this film was only $15,000.

The simplicity and cheapness of it all is why it ended up being horrifying. Knowing that there are no great special effects, the filmmakers had to focus their efforts on making sure it is well written with what they had. The demonic presence shown is usually subtle with a door creaking or a big noise. The biggest effects are things moving around. By the end, it gave me a good sense of terror.

I give this movie 5 out of 5 stars. It succeeds in a way movies with a higher budget often fail to do: scare me. It does so with its simple special effects and outstanding writing.

Content: Rated R. There is a little sexual content and implications that a couple is either about to engage in intercourse or has already done so, but it is nothing you would not see in a standard PG-13 movie. There is maybe a little bit of blood at the end, but it is not very clear. There is moderate language including quite a few "F" words.

*I just want to make one thing clear: I do not intend to start any stereotypes that are wrong about women. I am just talking about how men and women tend to react differently according to my own experiences. I know that there are quite a few women who love horror and are not scared of it at all. 

"The Nightmare Before Christmas" Review

By Christopher Campbell

“The Nightmare Before Christmas” stands the test of time as one of the most visually appealing films.

Jack Skellington is the bony citizen of Halloweentown: a place filled with horror characters like vampires, a werewolf, and even a slow guy with an ax in his head. Jack is well-known for putting on a good show for Halloween, which is the only holiday anyone there knows about.

The story starts as Halloween night closes. Jack is starting to feel dissatisfied with the way things are going. Yes, people there are praising him, but he feels that everything is getting redundant. He has been doing the same thing for years, and he feels that he needs a change.

As the night closes, he wanders off into the woods until the next morning when he comes to a group of very interesting trees. Each one of them has a symbol representing a different holiday. Each symbol also has a knob to open up as a doorway. The one that catches his eye is a painting of a Christmas tree. He turns the knob, opens the door and gets sucked into the enormous void it leads to.

He lands in the snowy, white hills of Christmastown. This place is the exact opposite of Halloweentown. Rather than everything being dark, scary and depressing, it is bright, jubilant and joyful.

Jack wants the citizens at Halloweentown to know about this holiday. While they do not understand why he is so excited at first, he eventually convinces them that they should run Christmas that year.

Without revealing anything, Jack finds out that Halloween characters taking over Christmas is not a good idea.

This is one of my favorite animated films to this day. It is the first full-length feature film to be made using stop-motion animation. This means that every character you see on screen is actually a figure or a doll that has been crafted. Every single frame is simply a picture of that model, and the movie is made up of thousands of these photos.

The result is something that is more visually impressive than any CGI animated movie out right now. Paradoxically, even though it is obvious that everything is fake, this style of animation adds a sense of realism. Furthermore, the thought of how it was made and the amount of work hours spent on it makes this film even more amazing.

The most beautifully done scene is the second song in which Jack is dancing somberly through a moonlit graveyard. The character design makes his fluid, stringy movements very interesting. Equally amazing is how the movements, facial features and mouth match perfectly to the music. During the song, he climbs with his long, bony legs to the top of an odd shaped hill sitting directly in front of the enormous moon. He removes head (it’s not gruesome, don’t worry), and holds it out singing the song as all of this is happening.

The music in this movie is all very catchy. Danny Elfman, who has worked on a lot of Tim Burton’s movies as well as “The Simpsons,” did all of the music to it. He is the one who wrote the songs and the score. He also sang all the parts of Jack. After watching this movie, I always end up humming or whistling some of the songs.

A weak point that other critics have talked about is the fact that the story is not very good. As I watched it last time, I had this in mind. I thought maybe it is not that the story is bad, but that it is simple. While that is partly true, I can definitely see what those critics were talking about.

Near the middle of the film, I realized that the pacing was a little slow. The reason for this is because while the music is still very good and entertaining, it lacks any major conflict. When Jack tries to explain Christmas to the Halloweentown citizens, they do not understand. However, he quickly figures out a way to convince them, and when he says that they will take overtake Christmas, they simply run with it.

The only one who opposes this plan is Sally, who is the most pointless character in the story. She is a rag-doll-looking character. She was created by a scientist who appears to use her as a servant. However, she does not want to live this kind of lifestyle, so she constantly finds ways to poison the scientist or put him to sleep so she can sneak out.

Sally’s story, though interesting, is not very relevant to the rest of the movie. She was pretty much put in there as a love interest to Jack. However, they do not communicate with each other any more than with other characters, and as the movie closes, they end up together.

She is also the only opposition to Jack’s plan to take over Christmas. She has a premonition before he announces his plan that something bad is going to happen. As she tries to explain it to him, he either blows it off or comically thinks she is talking about something else.

The Boogie Man, the main villain, is also not very relevant to the story. He is a walking, talking, singing bed sheet filled with bugs. While Jack is preparing to take over Christmas, he tells some children, who are always up to no good, to capture Santa Claus. Jack’s intention is to give Santa a holiday, but the kids give him to the Boogie Man who is going to do something cruel to him.

Though he is not very relevant, he is a very entertaining villain. He is flamboyant and mean. When he is introduced, he sings in his gospel-sounding voice about how he is not going to be nice to Santa Claus. This is actually one of my favorite songs in the movie.

Although the story has its flaws, I do like the overall message that it presents. Before watching it the last time, I thought that this aspect was not very good. I thought it was that people should never try to change their lives. This time around, I realized it is really about being true to yourself. If you are not satisfied with what is going on, you can always try something new. However, it is also important to remember who you are and where you came from. It is also good to adopt aspects of other cultures, but it is wrong to try to change them according to your own.

I give this movie 4.5 out of 5 stars. Yes, it does have its problems. However, the visual aspect is amazing, the story has a good message and the music is enjoyable. Furthermore, the nostalgic value that this gives me adds some extra points. It is a movie I try to watch at least once a year around the Halloween season.

Content: Rated PG. There are some disturbing shots but nothing super gruesome. There is one--maybe two--instances of a religious vulgarity.