Paranormal Activity 4

            Maybe it's because I hold the first movie in such high esteem.  Maybe it's because I'm still on a Sinister high and every other horror movie pales in comparison.  Or maybe it's just that Paranormal Activity 4 really is a steaming pile of effluence.

            On to the review!

            I reviewed Paranormal Activity 3 last year and was friendly to it, although you may note that I hated the ending.  (Also, typos...typos EVERYWHERE.)  At this point I think the writers are taking bets on how terrible they can make these endings.  Guess what?  This one is the new winner.  The ending retroactively ruins what is already a very poorly done, cheap cash-in film.  Paranormal Activity is now no better than the Saw franchise.

            If you must know, it's now November of 2011.  A small family of 4 is living in Nevada, minding its own damn business, when a new family moves in across the street.  The new neighbors are Katie (Katie Featherston) and her 'son' Robbie (Brady Allen).  Katie is, of course, the same demon-possessed girl from the first three films and the film leads you to assume that Robbie is the kidnapped boy from movie 2.

            Our main character is Alex (Kathryn Newton), a teenage girl who actually gets along with little brother Wyatt (Aiden Lovekamp), has a mildly obnoxious boyfriend in Ben (Matt Shively) and two parents that obviously don't get along.  Much of the movie is spent scaring the shit out of Alex while mother Holly (Alexondra Lee) and father Daniel (Brian Boland) act as the disbelieving parents.

            The scares start up when Robbie comes to stay with them for a few days after his 'mother' takes sick and is hospitalized.  Robbie also brings his imaginary friend Toby with him and Alex can't shake the feeling that little Robbie is one weird little boy. 

            Since she's just a teenage girl, she can't exactly set up cameras in the entire house, so this film's method of recording is Skype.  She sets every laptop to constantly record and can then review footage from almost every room in the house.

            The idea is neat, as well as the idea to use the Microsoft Kinect's infrared camera to deliver the few genuinely spooky scenes.  Unfortunately they almost never actually LOOK at any footage, so our protagonists spend most of the movie clueless.

            The acting ranges from 'meh' to 'excellent' but only two characters fall into the latter category.  Young Brady is truly, genuinely creepy as Robbie, and he delivers his lines as if he's a grumpy old man.  This does a great job of convincing the audience that he knows far more than a young boy should.  The other excellent actor is Aiden as Wyatt, who does a good job of going from happy-go-lucky kid to haunted little boy as the plot unfolds.

            Everyone else is either boring, uninspired, or unconvincing.  Matt's character Ben was borderline unwatchable at times, especially during  his first scene.  His line delivery is almost exactly like that of a certain porn star from an amateur website that I shall not name because I can at least try to keep this site within an R rating.  Also, what's a teenaged kid doing getting acting advice from an amateur porn star?  For shame.

            As far as scares go, they're generally uninspired.  Almost a full three-fourths of them are jump scares.  Out of those, over half are your typical 'fooled you' jumps scares, caused by people and animals throughout the house.  (Although, when the cat jumps on-screen, a guy behind us screamed like a girl and the entire theater got a good laugh out of it.)

            While the 'scares' come more and more frequently as the movie proceeds, they never develop enough tension to actually keep the audience riveted.  It's almost as if the writers were scaring themselves, so someone comes along to diffuse the tension every other scene.  That in itself would be forgivable if it weren't for the ending.

            Oh god, the ending.

            It really is worse than any horror movie ending I have ever seen.  Of course, I don't want to ruin it for you (well, I do, but I won't).  So instead, I'll just throw up a quote from one of the people I saw the film with.  "That movie didn't scare me at all.  It just made me want to avoid single moms."

            So if you like horror movies, or if you still have a soft spot for any of the Paranormal Activity films, do not go see Paranormal Activity 4.  Give your money to Sinister.  Or save it for next week's Silent Hill: Revelations.  It may not end up being a good movie either, but at least there's Pyramid Head.