Doors slamming. Windows opening. People/objects floating. It's all been done before really, but it's what we go for. It's what we've come to expect, but we don't want it to be all tired and "done before".
Unfortunately for Paranormal Activity 4, it does use all the tried and tested haunted house techniques, and it does them well, but it doesn't really make for an interesting film.
Paranormal Activity 4 picks up five years after the events in the first and second film. Katie has long since disappeared with her sister's baby, Hunter and their whereabouts remain unknown. However, a new family start experiencing supernatural phenomenon, including the daughter, Alex (Kathryn Newton) the Mother, Holly (Alexondra Lee) the Father, Doug (Lee Dunham) the young son, Wyatt (Aiden Lovekamp) and Alex's boyfriend, Ben (Matt Shively). Alex soon starts falling suspicious of the creepy young boy across the road, Robbie (Brady Allen) when he befriends her brother, appears in their playhouse in the middle of the night and also the fact that his Mother has been taken ill for a long period of time and will happily leave her son alone with the neighbours who are practically strangers. Alex and Ben decide to set up recording devices through the numerous laptops that they have throughout the house in the hope that they will catch something, as well as video clips from their video camera, camera phones and Skype conversations. What follows is some predictably creepy scenes, that we have come to expect from Paranormal Activity, except this film tries to mix things up by having creepy things happen equally as much throughout the daytime as well as during the nighttime.
One of the main disappointments that I had with Paranormal Activity 4 was that it added very little to the mystery surrounding Katie (Katie Featherston) and Hunter and what it does add is so muddled and confusing that it seems to trip up over itself a lot. While I'm all for films that play to an audience's curiosity and not spelling everything out as clear as day to them, Paranormal Activity 4 fails to even provide enough developed clues for us as the audience to guess and investigate along with the characters. It's suddenly revealed that Wyatt may have a shady past (I don't want to give too much away!) but it's not developed enough, like having Alex and Ben investigate into it further, for us as the audience to properly register it so we can put the clues together ourselves.
Instead, the characters of Alex and Ben simply record footage for us as the audience to watch and be scared by, as the characters themselves don't seem bothered in watching the footage back themselves to investigate the hauntings further. Say what you will about Paranormal Activity 3 and it's dodgy ending, but at least the characters seemed genuinely freaked out and wanted to know more. Whereas the characters in Paranormal Activity 4 simply don't seem to care (especially the parents who don't believe their daughter at all!) It's especially evident when Alex discovers the use of the symbol seen in the promotional material (a circle within a triangle), but instead of a big investigation to uncover more about the cult or the demon, we are treated to a fleeting piece of exposition about it being a symbol to sacrifice a virginal offering to a demon. That's it. That's all you get.
However, I cannot deny that Paranormal Activity 4 probably has one of the most creepiest endings of all the films (despite the reappearance of the dreaded witches from PA3.) Although the film makes use of the demon face jump scare from the first film's ending, it doesn't feel as cheaply used as it was in the first film. But, even though the film does have a decent build up to it's end, the appearance of the end credits are so jarring and sudden that I couldn't help but feel a little cheated that we didn't get a proper ending. While the whole film was plummeting towards it's predictable finale, it would have been nice to see just a little bit more of a tense chase scene between Alex and the possessed woman across the street (who shall remain unnamed!), or maybe a final showdown of some kind (not necessarily a fight, but maybe an exorcism of some kind) but we don't get any of this.
However, the characters for PA4 were a decent fresh crop of faces that did an acceptable job with the little material that they were given. Matt Shively did a decent job of not overstepping the mark into annoying boyfriend stereotype in horror films. Although it was obvious that Kathryn Newton was picked for the lead role for her girl next door looks (and it's kind of disturbing that the poster seems to be sexualising a teenager) she also does a decent job as the concerned, older sister. However, the biggest acting props have to be given to the two young boys, Aiden Lovekamp and Brady Allen who always amp up the creepiness to 10 with their blank, pale, demonic faces...
So, overall Paranormal Activity 4 is a pretty paint-by-numbers found footage haunted house flick. There's nothing new here and there's nothing extraordinary - it's just pretty average. While some of the scares are effective, particularly the ending, I felt cheated by the tagline "All the Activity has lead to this..."
If this is all the backstory and scares that we were waiting for after sitting through four films, then I wish I had never started in the first place.
** / *****
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