Paranormal Activity 4 (2012) - Review

After a string of super successful, super low-budget horror movies, Paranormal Activity 4 finally broke the proverbial camel’s back.  People were NOT feeling this one, and I can see why.  The scares are weaker, the conceit of having a camera in every room is pretty ridiculous, and... no, that’s about it.  Other than that, it’s pretty much exactly like every other Paranormal Activity movie.

Paranormal Activity 3 was my personal favorite of the bunch, but this one isn’t nearly as bad as some people have said.  In fact, I think it’s better than the second installment (and probably better than that terrible-looking Marked Ones that only made it fifteen minutes into) due to a strong cast.  The two leads are actually really good, especially for relatively young actors, the creepy kid is creepy, and the parents are fine despite their characters being complete idiots that you actively want to die.

The movie’s missteps lie in its script, which does little to justify the film’s existence.  This should have really ended at two.  Okay, three is a prequel, I can dig it, but four?  This movie is just kind of pointless and retcons things from Paranormal Activity 2 to a point where the whole series is needlessly confusing now.

I feel slightly pervy right now.

The gimmicks in this one are also pretty lame.  While I loved the moving camera in PA 3, the Kinect angle here is just not very effective, and of course the movie (like all of the others) suffers from a severe case of Rushed Ending Syndrome in which everyone is unceremoniously killed off so we can hurry up and get to the credits.

Overall this is not a very good movie, but there are some surprisingly strong performances and it’s thankfully pretty short.  If you’re already this deep into the series and still mildly enjoying it, then you might as well go ahead and sit through this one too, whatever.