Okay. Here we go.
And I wasn't being facetious. There will be a ton of spoilers. So if you haven't seen and don't want to know, TURN BACK NOW!
Thursday night, I attended the midnight screening of Paranormal Activity 3. Being a big fan of the PA franchise, and horror movies (especially ones featuring the paranormal) in general, I was very excited. I figured this would be where the story of Kristi and Katie's past comes full circle with their life's outcome. NOT. AT. ALL.
Allow me to preface my explanation by saying that I actually really, really liked PA3. I thought it was far better than the second (and answered some of its questions) and on par, if not better than the first.
So after watching the trailer for Paranormal Activity 3 when it premiered, which I have casually placed right here in my blog, I swore to myself I wouldn't watch any of the tv spots or additional trailers. You see, I've found that the people who advertise these movies like to scare you with the trailer, so you'll come see the movie. Basic marketing tool, right? However, with this particular franchise, it seems as though they like to give away the biggest jump scares in the film, thereby making you expect to see them. Even if you're wrong, you're sitting there going "When does Micah get thrown at the camera?" or "When do all the cabinets in Kristi's kitchen open at once?" instead of having an absolute element of surprise. So I swore to myself I wouldn't watch any of these extra trailers, viral videos or tv spots. And I didn't. Not a single one. I'd literally leave the room if they were on my television.
While I was busy ignoring tv spots, the second trailer for the film came out. And it looked a little something like this.
Okay, now had I seen the second trailer some of the scares would have been ruined, but I'd be really excited to see the plot come full circle. But wait. Hit the fucking brakes, guys!
Almost NONE of this happened in the actual movie.
Now, I find it hilariously ironic that the one time I chose to not watch the tv spots, all the tv spots weren't used in the film. I'm not sure if this was a pretend scare tactic to get us to the theater or of at the last minute the director lost his damn mind. Maybe it's a ploy to get us to see what happens in the fourth one they perhaps decided they wanted to make last minute. I don't know. All I know is there is A LOT missing.
I don't want to confuse the statement "there is a lot missing" with "I hated what I saw", because I definitely didn't. Being that I had no knowledge of what other parts of the movie were/weren't out there, I went into the movie cold with no preconceived notions of what this movie had in store.
I was, however, expecting to see a few things and they are this:
1: I expected to see the house fire. Now, I understand that Daniel (in the second film) burned Katie's photo when they were transferring the demon to her and that's how the picture got burned. But that means Katie was possibly brainwashed to assume that there was a house fire. And seeing as she claims all their belongings were lost in this fire (see PA1), I'm not exactly sure how that plays out.
2: I also expected some sort of resolution about Katie & Hunter's whereabouts. Are we left to assume Katie took Hunter to sacrifice him, based on the rules of this cult?
sidenote: If you saw the resolution of PA3 and you were like 'WTF?! Where'd all this cult bullshit come from?', go back and watch PA2. During PA2, Kristi's daughter Ali and her boyfriend find an article on the internet about said cult. It states that somewhere in the family line someone made a deal for wealth and power and in turn must sacrifice the first born son. The first born son was Hunter, Kristi's child. Hence why Kristi's grandmother (back to PA3 now) was pressuring her to try for more kids. "You always wanted a son", she says.
So clearly it seems when the demon was transferred to Katie, she (and the demon, who we are to assume is still Toby) took it upon herself to take Hunter for sacrifice. I would just like to have seen this story come full-circle.
Now these were the only two holes in the plot I'd really like filled. I really feel as though there will be a fourth film because there is just too much left unanswered. And I think just adding all the missing stuff in the special features of the DVD in a few months is a total cop-out and a really shitty way to close out a trilogy.
At face value, I really really liked the film. Like the first (and sadly very UNlike the second), there was A LOT of tension. The great part about the first film was it was about what you didn't see. As these movies progress we're seeing more and more and that can take away from the scare. Although, using kids in paranormal films is always a winner. And Jessica Tyler Brown (Kristi) and Chloe Csengery (Katie) were fantastic in this movie. The moment when Katie runs into the entity and we, the audience, can only see that she's run into something was astoundingly creepy. A lot of people thought the ghost pulling her up by her hair was a cheap shot, and I think it kind of was, but it gave me the chills and that's NEVER happened to me during a movie before.
All in all, there are still some questions I need answered and some things I would like to have seen the first time around, but ultimately I was pretty happy with how Paranormal Activity 3 turned out. It's stuck with me for a few days now and I'm sure I'll go back and see it again to see if I can answer any of the pending questions.
If you've seen PA3 and would like to leave some theories, thoughts or your questions you want answered, feel free to do so.
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