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91The bottom line, for me, is this: I don't scare easily at horror films, but I watched Paranormal Activity 3 in a state of high anxiety.
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Oct 20, 201190Paranormal Activity 3, the latest installment in the low-budget horror franchise, is far and away the sharpest, most wildly aware film in the series.
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Oct 20, 201180"3" introduces a camera affixed to a fan panning slowly back and forth, offering now-you-see-it-now-you-don't tableaus in the kitchen and foyer. (Of course we never see who's editing this footage, and the story's cameramen keep dying off.) It also brings fake-out jolts and humor into play.
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80The filmmakers throw in a few cheesy scares: mom in a monster mask, a baby sitter jumping in front of a camera. But the rest is pretty freaking cool.
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80Although not exactly breaking any new ground with its by now all too familiar found-footage format, Paranormal Activity 3 hews to the formula in expertly crafted fashion, mustering up the requisite scares and then some.
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75Paranormal Activity 3 has one new technical wrinkle, and it's brilliant: In addition to the cameras in the bedroom, Smith mounts a third to the base of a rotating electric fan, so it pans back and forth from the dining room to the kitchen and back again.
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75Co-directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman cut their teeth on 2010's glib social-media mystery "Catfish,'' and since they're clever boys, they make the most of the series' new toy. Otherwise, Paranormal Activity 3 is almost identical to, and just as eerily effective as, the first two films in its alternation of cheesy "boo!'' tactics and genuine scares.
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75The films are not works of genius. They are, however, wily reminders of the virtues of restraint when you're out for a scare.
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70More of the same, using the found-footage tricks the first two films employed to try to shock the audience. But man, are those some good tricks.
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Oct 19, 201170The more traditional haunted house feel and fresh focus should please diehards and pull in new fans.
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67More funhouse spook show than actual horror movie but, like the black magic roller coaster ride it's predicated on, it has a startling amount of jolts, frissons, and downright freak-outs to qualify as the best teen date movie of the month if not the year. Boo. Scary.
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Oct 19, 201165Where Paranormal Activity 3's weak points show are in the unbelievable silliness of its characters.
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63Paranormal Activity 3 delivers similarly eerie moments, though long stretches go by where nothing truly ominous occurs.
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Oct 21, 201160Like its predecessors, Paranormal Activity 3 demands to be seen with a crowd: Being able to hear outbursts of nervous laughter and irrepressible panic ripple through a packed house is the reason movies like this exist.
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60Much like its predecessors, Paranormal Activity 3 is a slow-building, stealthily creepy supernatural thriller that takes a teasingly indirect approach to generating suspense and escalating dread.
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50I fully expect Paranormal Activity 3 to be box office gold. But it's barely worth two stars, let alone two cents. As for future followups, I offer this plea: STOP!
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50The first 45 minutes of this film feel like far too much normal and not nearly enough para.
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50The scares (if you want to call them that) are still there - one "boo!" moment after another, strung together like a breadcrumb trail through a labyrinth. So if that's all you want from a Halloween release like Paranormal Activity 3, you are the perfect audience member.
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50This Paranormal doesn't tamper with the formula that worked in the first two films. It lacks the "money" moments that those films delivered and ends with a finale that is downright conventional. "Paranormal" reveals itself for what it has become, the "Saw" of found video thrillers.
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50Paranormal Activity 3 hardly adds anything new to the situation; instead, it pretends to fill a gap while basically just heaping on one calculated "boo!" after the other.
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Oct 21, 201140The further this series drifts into corporate-franchise territory and away from Peli's inventively cheap, slyly psychosexual conception, the more reasons there are to just stay away.
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40A few really weird things happen during Paranormal Activity 3, though unfortunately, they have nothing to do with being frightened.
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Oct 21, 201138Paranormal Activity 3 just uses new technology to deliver the same old ghosts-and-goblins hokum.
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38The shtick movie Paranormal Activity 3 is the horror equivalent of vaudeville comedy: a little patter, a little pie in the face, repeat.
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25Inexplicably, there are people who still haven't had enough of these movies. The first was a nifty novelty. Now the appeal has worn threadbare.
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 39 out of 63
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Mixed: 10 out of 63
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Negative: 14 out of 63
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