Now Playing: Paranormal Activity 3

Being a big fan of the first two Paranormal Activity movies, I was of course very excited to see Paranormal Activity 3. I'd also like to say I avoided ALL the trailers for this movie before seeing it! I like seeing these kinds of movies in the theater because you get a good group atmosphere going and when the big jump scares happen; everyone jumps, people shout or scream, and then there's that great nervous laughter immediately following that says "Hey, you're not the only one that jumped!" Also you get the great sound system of the theater to boost the scares and the subtle creepy sounds. But, all that doesn't really matter if the movie is no good! I slapped my money down on the counter and bought the tickets, and I'm here to tell what my experience was like so you can decide if you should put down your own cash.


Paranormal Activity 3 primarily follows the two sisters from the previous two films, but this time when they were very little girls. In the first movie, the main character Katie (Katie Featherston) speaks of having some memories of some kind of haunting happening when she and her sister Kristi were kids. This movie attempts to show you that point in their lives when it all presumably began. Kristi has a new imaginary friend named Toby. Toby isn't very nice. That's about it! Unfortunately, the story is pretty thin, even more than the previous films.

Young Katie and Kristi are played by two talented little girls, Chloe Csengery and Jessica Tyler Brown respectively. A big worry would be that young child actors would be very bad, as they frequently can be. One saving grace of this film is that the two young girls are quite good and seem extremely natural, adding to the strenuous believability of the film. This maintains what I feel are some of the best parts of all the Paranormal Activity movies which is the natural acting.

Scene from Paranormal Activity of a picture of Katie as a child. The 3rd installment focuses on this time.

But of course no one is really going to see these movies for the acting, but instead for the jump scares and atmospheric tension and suspense. There were a few scares that really got me to jump, and a few I didn't really expect. In that way, I guess I got what I wanted, but I still felt like there weren't that many scary/creepy scenes. A lot of the stuff we see happen in this movie, has happened before in the first, second, or both previous films. Someone standing nearly motionless watching people sleep? Check. Someone being pulled along the floor by invisible forces by their feet? Check. This rehashing, combined with the fact that there were very few scares anyways, really hurt the film. It also didn't help that it was only 85 minutes long and felt really short. While this is only 1 minute shorter than the first film, the repeated spooky bits means there wasn't much time left for anything new.

The same scene I've seen in all the previous movies is getting pretty old now

Now this is where I start running into some BIG issues I had with the film. Being that this 3rd movie is based on Katie's and Kristi's childhood, and in the first film Katie mentions there was a big house fire when they were kids, is it safe to think that would be in the movie? How about the fact that the trailer shows a house on fire with firetrucks all around it? It should be pretty safe to assume this will be a major development of the movie, right? I'm not crazy in assuming this, am I? Well guess what? Not only is it NOT in the movie, but it's never even mentioned! Not once!

NOT IN THE MOVIE

Another thing I noticed while trying to find the pictures for this review, is that many of the more common images, I didn't even recognize. It was seriously confusing, because I didn't want to show things that weren't in the movie. I know that sometimes footage is cut that appear in the trailers, so I was curious to see what creepy extra scene may have only been in the trailers. Having already seen the movie, it was certainly safe to watch the trailers now, so I did. BIG mistake! There wasn't just one or two clips that weren't in the movie, rather about 90% of the trailer were of things that I never saw. It also didn't help that much of this "new" footage was WAY more scary than what I paid for!

NOT IN THE MOVIE!!

I'm about to list of things that you see in the trailer that weren't in the movie. I don't think this is a spoiler, rather, a warning not to expect these things if you plan on seeing it. You can find the trailer I'm about to talk about RIGHT HERE.

1. Knocking on the mirror and all related comments
2. Talking and comparing their daughter to Carol Anne of the Poltergeist movie
3. Lights losing power
4. Kristi walking along and jumping off the banister
5. Their mother watching ANY tapes
6. Water being thrown at the demon while painting and mother protecting Kristi
7. All scenes involving the "ghost investigator" who I NEVER saw in the movie
8. Scene showing one of the girls in the car
9. Lights exploding in the stairwell
10. THE FIRE
11. The mom running around scared
12. Mom being thrown around by the demon

There is also an additional teaser trailer of the girls playing "Bloody Mary" in the bathroom and a shadow appearing. This also never happens. Basically, compared to the trailer, Paranormal Activity 3 is tame, dull, boring, and uneventful. It's like they took out all the action and just ditched it. I'll confirm that as of this moment, I'm extremely mad at the marketing for this movie, this is pretty much straight-up false advertising at this point! If I had actually seen this trailer before I saw the movie, I would have been insanely disappointed with it.

Interesting! Another version of this scene IS in the movie, but instead NOTHING HAPPENS

Before I saw the trailer, I would have said that this film wasn't as good as either of the previous movies, but it still had a few scares, and a odd plot that didn't really work. After seeing the trailer, my opinion now is that it's not worth it AT ALL and DON'T SEE THIS MOVIE in the theater. My only hope is that there will be a DVD/Blu-ray release that will have these deleted scenes, or maybe an extended cut with them included in the story. It really felt like almost nothing happened in the movie, and it had a weak ending. I firmly believe that what you get is not worth the money for the pricey movie theater ticket. Save your cash, and hope for an extended cut Blu-ray later on.