The Thing/Paranormal Activity 3

Today I am going to give you a nice review of both (BOTH!) of your horror movie options for October, 2011.  It's kinda sad, but yes, there are only two films currently out on wide release that fit the horror film definition.  On the plus side, neither of them are a new Saw or Final Destination, and there are no gritty reboots of classic fright flicks to disappoint you.

            I'm going to put up both movie reviews in this post, but I'll give you a nice visual indication between the two, just in case you only want to read about one of them.  Because, y'know.  You might be afraid of ghosts and not want to read about Paranormal Activity 3, or you might be John Carpenter and not want to read about what they did to ruin your mythology with a prequel.

            On to the review(s)!

            The Thing, despite having the exact same name as John Carpenter's 1982 classic that was based on 1951's The Thing From Another World that was based on the 1938 novella 'The Thing From Another World' is actually a prequel.  For those of us who have an unhealthy love of the Kurt Russel classic, we can recall that the 'thing' had originated from a discovery made by a neighboring Norwegian outpost.  Well, this unnecessary prequel shows us exactly what happened at the Norwegian camp.

            The only actors you need to know or care about are Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Kate) and Joel Edgerton (Sam), two out of three Americans that are part of this story, because Hollywood would never make a movie with a non-American as the main character.  That would just be silly.  Also, it's the lazy way of ensuring most of your dialog is in English.

            Kate is some sort of frozen animal expert, so she is asked to fly up to the Arctic and help the team of Norwegian scientists study an alien found a few yards away from a downed spaceship.  Oh, I'm sorry.  didn't I mention the spaceship?  Here's where this prequel suffers.  It's not enough to make a movie and tie it into a beloved film.  They have to do it BIGGER and BETTER.  Or, in this case, dumber and louder.

            After the obligatory introduction time, the film gets good.  I mean, really good.  They capture the look and feel of the Carpenter film by having the alien hunt, kill and absorb the crew.  The middle hour perfectly imitates the claustrophobic tension that I loved from the earlier versions.  Everyone is trapped in a wooden building, hunted by a mimic shapeshifter that can only be harmed by fire, and outside is a below-freezing desolate wasteland.

            Then it all goes downhill when SPACESHIP.  I'm not going to go any farther, except to say that The Thing (2011) would be a great movie if they cut the last 30 minutes off or got rid of any evidence of SPACESHIP.

            As you can expect from a horror movie where you pretty much know how it's going to end thanks to being a prequel coming out 29 years later, most everyone is only there to die.  The acting is pretty much on par with that.  Nobody puts in a particularly memorable scene, and I'd have to say the only guy I really liked in the film was Kristofer Hivju as Jonus.  Partially because he was awesome, partially because of his beard, and partially because he was the only guy who wasn't magically bilingual. 

            As far as the special effects go, it's both good and bad.  Good, because the creature's shapes are genuinely horrific and creepy.  Bad, because despite all the money they put into the CGI, it's merely as good as the old-fashioned effects from 1982, when it should have been much better.

            If you're looking to kill some time, check it out.  It will entertain you, but if you're a genuine fan of any earlier movies in the 'series' you will be disappointed.  It's no 1982 The Thing, but it's still better than other attempts at shapeshifting films like Mimic.

            Paranormal Activity3, however, falls directly into the same category of The Last Exorcism and Paranormal Activity 2:  If you stop the movie before the final scene, it is really, really fucking good.  It's that final act that jumps the shark and ruins the entire movie.

            Before I go any farther on this one, I want to point out that if you didn't like the first two, or if supernatural horrors just aren't your thing, then this isn't going to change your mind.  There's nothing special about PA3 that will make you a believer or convince you to go back and check out other films in the genre.  Also, I'm a huge fan of the genre, so expect a more positive style from me than you usually get.

            The first Paranormal Activity was a well-done, extremely cheap surprise hit.  Of course, that meant that the studio was obligated to pump out a few sequels.  The only credit I can give to the studios is that they at least tried to keep what worked, and what worked just so happened to be the type of horror I love.  You can find ghost stories in every culture, because the best thing about them is that the individual gets to fill in the blanks.  It's one thing to have Freddy or Jason fucking up a bunch of kids during a 90 minute film, but it's another thing to have your antagonist be completely unknown and unknowable.  That's why Poltergeist can still give people nightmares almost 30 years later.

            PA3 doesn't venture too far from what made the first two work, and it tries to tie together the trilogy (please dear God don't let there be any more).  It does this by going back in time and showing what happened to the sisters Katie and Kristi when they were just precocious little kids.  It's mentioned a few times in the first two, so now you get to see it all with your own eyes thanks to 80's style cinematography.

            It turns out that, conveniently, the girls' mother is dating a wedding videographer which, I guess was quite the cutting-edge job back in 1988.  We set the scene with a birthday party and show you just how happy the family is and just how much the little kids love their mom's new boyfriend. 

            We get our first hint that something may be amiss when little Kristi (Jessica Tyler Brown) develops a bond with an imaginary friend, Toby.  Toby doesn't seem to be the happy-go-lucky type of invisible friend.  In fact, Kristi can't even talk about him because then she'll be 'punished' by Toby.  Seriously, invisible friends are total douchebags these days.  The boyfriend, Dennis (Christopher N. Smith (holy shit am I getting sick of middle names)) gets suspicious after his failed attempt at a sex tape shows something odd and sets up some totally awesome 6-hour VHS recorders.  He puts one in the room he shares with his girlfriend and the other goes in the girls' room. (Insert terrible joke about the good ol' days having less mistrust, allowing a well-meaning guy to videotape two girls sleeping without being seen as a complete creep.)

            As more creepy crazy stuff goes down, Dennis quite ingeniously attaches a camcorder to the base of an oscillating fan so that it can monitor the kitchen and living room.  Then we get our mid-movie scares.  There are some really good ones ranging from the good ol' 'boo!' fake out to genuinely creepy, crazy stuff.  It may no longer be the super low budget sort of film like the first Paranormal Activity, but I still appreciate just how nice little they show and how much they leave up to the imagination.

            Then, unfortunately, demons.  I know they hinted at demons and spirits and possession in the first two films, and the ending of PA2 really indicated that some sort of possession was at play, but this one tries really, really hard to tie everything together via demons.  Also, witches.  Fuck.

            I still liked this better than the second movie, but the whole series is losing its charm.  On a sliding scale of horror sequels, I would easily put Paranormal Activity above any Nightmare On Elm Street between 4 and 8 and better than any Poltergeist sequel.  Especially the third one of those.  Yeesh.  It's still not an improvement on the series, but hopefully they've written themselves into a corner as far as the home video shtick goes.  Now the only place they have to go is the Blair Witch 2 route, and we can all hope THAT never happens.