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The spell seems to have broken with me and the Paranormal Activity series. I don't know if I'd have liked this entry more if I hadn't disliked the second film so very much - that is, it's hard for me to tell if the dudes from Catfish actually managed to make a pretty decent movie here like everybody's saying they did but I just had the gimmick murdered for me irrevocably, or what.
Whatever the case, I jumped here and there just from having something thrown at my face (the very first big scare was the best one), and I found Christopher Nicholas Smith as adorable everybody (and bless that shot of him crawling away from the camera in sweatpants), but with this one I've finally fallen into the camp of people I dismissed that called the first film kind of tedious staring at tedium. Where once a closing door or passing shadow did the trick now they felt redundant. Been there, jumped at that - it just made me want to go watch the first one, basically. The fan-mounted swiveling camera was better in theory than it ended up being in reality - I found the punchlines, if you will, limp. That's all ya got? And don't even get me started on the annoyingly telegraphed finale, which left me as unmoved as similar antics in The Last Exorcism.
I did think the girl playing Kristi (good god her parents named her Sprague? Really?) was a terrific kid actor, holding the screen for several long takes really well. And I appreciate a series that's so low-key capturing the public's imagination. It's old-fashioned newfangled fun, but it's gotten awful creaky.
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4 comments:
Sprague Grayden plays adult Kristi. The kid's name is Jessica Brown.
You're absolutely right about everything (except Kristi's name). Few times I've been this annoyed by other filmgoers, as the theater was packed and everyone was going "OOOOH!", "AAAHH!" at all times, like they hadn't seen the same stuff twice before. They knew they were supposed to be scared, and acted accordingly. (Full disclosure, I nearly puked my balls out with the scene you mention -it's the one with the mask, right?)
Whoopsie re: the name, I was in a rush and messed that up. Thanks for letting me know!
anon2 - yup, that's the scare. It actually got a yelp out of me!
I am late in getting to this party, but basically... what you said. The first one was 2/3 of a great movie (basically everything up to and including the hallway-dragging), the second one was a rehash of all the same set-pieces (seriously, how did this not get all the critical flack that Hangover II got?) with added nonsense (why does the demon go after the pool filter and the kitchen cabinets?), and this one turned into Passions (seriously, now this series includes child brides and brainwashing?).
The ending also reminded me of House of the Devil.
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