Paranormal Activity Franchise (2007 - 2015)
Now you can experience the phenomenon that is Paranormal Activity in the comfort and safety of your own home!
I couldn’t stomach doing these as individual entries. If you’ve listened to any of the Watch-Alongs I’ve done of three of these things, you’d also be fully aware that my overall opinion of the franchise is negative. Still, perhaps it’s about time I gave the franchise an acknowledgment since it seems to be popular enough that it keeps getting more - so maybe, just maybe, we can consider this a learning experience, because there are certainly some things I wouldn’t mind talking about. Tonight, we talk about the Paranormal Activity franchise.
So, I’ve already gotten the fact I’m not fond of this franchise out of the way - that said, each movie tends to have some moments that I do enjoy, and at it’s core there are some little gems that I can see potential in, regardless of how much it’s squandered. Story is not one of those things - but, I would lie if I didn’t say that there wasn’t an actual story here. Yeah, it even spans across the franchise - as loose as it is. There’s a “ghost” - probably more some form of demonic entity - that always seems to want something. As the franchise goes on, we find out (sort of) cults and witches that are all involved, as they want this being to get it’s goal - and by the end we find out the goal is to become a real boy. A real boy, by which I mean posses a human body of it’s own. Now, soaring beyond the fact that being an immortal ghost with ghost powers seems like it would be way better than being a squishy human body with ghost powers, there’s a lot to unpack in this story for details - like how it’s got time travel like moments in the last one that links timelines together, and how the demonic entity seems to have a thing for little girls, and various other things. It’s there, but it’s not exactly great - yet if I had to admit it, I have seen movies with less plot but those one’s haven’t gone on to get a franchise.
The largest problem with the story is one of the main sells of the movie - found footage. Look, I love found footage in principal, it’s such a great way to get away with filming various things while making it all feel much more intimate or real - but most all movies that use the style squander it like they only attached it because it’s guaranteed money or something. There are moments when this franchise - particularly the very fist one - use this to good effect. The idea of recording things because weird stuff is happening works great for paranormal things, and the slight, almost unnoticeable background-scares employed fit into them so well. Where things fall apart however is even more from the start - these families, down to the last one, record way more than any normal person does from the start of the movie. Remember the last time that you couldn’t carry on a conversation with a person without recording everything with your camera, without any expectations of something weird or important going on? I don’t - and it robs the “found footage” format of it’s main asset, that of a realistic feeling. The final part that strikes against the found footage format here is the final one I’ve watched - which incorporated 3D. The problem with 3D when the 3D is supposed to be from an actual in-movie camera is that things don’t break the window and come out at you - outside of a few dusty particles, everything stays within the screen with just a little bit of extra depth to it. It feels quite a bit like a waste of 3D - and it’s all because this adherence to the found footage premise.
Well, the format isn’t getting utilized to it’s fullest, but how about the acting? Some of the people aren’t horrible - at least to the extent I assume a lot of it is the writing. Other times, it’s pretty terrible. You could easily tell me they came out and just used a bunch of friends who had nothing to do with acting, and I’d be prone to believe you for a good number of the characters. That being said, despite some of the actor not really being great or decent at times, they do occasionally have some really good lines or good highlight moments. I’d largely - outside of the kids - chalk it up to the writing. The format can hinder some of the acting - usually the person behind the camera is all just spoken lines, normally things being shouted like “how cool is that” or typical jump scare screams. Largely, it’s not the worst part of these movies, but it’s not the best part either - although I’m serious about some of them having some great lines. Despite being probably the worst or second worst character in the movie, the brother character has three of the most entertaining lines in the entire franchise.
Paranormal Activity 1 : Three minutes of standing.
Audio is balanced fine. There will be the occasional loud noises for jump scares, but outside of that when it wants people to be audible they largely are. You aren’t getting a ton of background music or the likes, but they do use one audio track nearly every time something spooky is happening or coming up - which of course in turn ruins the impact of a lot of the jump scares when the later movies start pushing almost exclusively for jump scares. Actors do have a range of voices for the most part to be heard - although the movies do gravitate more towards “excitable or overly loud and shouty” when or before they are scared.
Effects work is actually good. Sadly, perhaps the strongest part of the movie. Yes, watching green “night vision” footage and shaking handhelds can get pretty old pretty fast, but when it comes to various activities I can’t deny they look good. Doors creep open without obvious pushers getting into the shot, footprints appear in powders without looking like obvious CG. Furniture floats off screen, only to fall down when it decides it would be spookiest. Some shots are even quite smart - like the Kinect laser grid showing movement of something that’s not actually visibly there. 3D particles do float around as though they are actually there - but it’s also not all great things. Floating witch powers at the end of the first don’t look great, and some of the other moments of more jump-scare related moments look less then stellar. There is also a lot of times when the effect technically will look good, but just doesn’t look right somehow. Of course, you also get some camera degradation moments, and a lot of “night vision”.
So we’ve gotten through most of the franchise with quality comments. Why is it then that I seem to not like this series so much? Let me tell you the biggest thing this has going against it - it’s a horror franchise with no real scares. Outside of the first, the others tend to slowly lean into jump scares as primarily the source of fear - and when you know it’s coming, it just isn’t really all that scary anymore. In the first, it does subtle horror which isn’t something that I don’t see all that often and was impressed by - but they mishandle it. A good tension builder knows it can’t draw things out too long or it risks changing that tension into something else! Under perfect circumstances - a dark, cold October night all alone in a camper - it fails to evoke fear in me. The found footage segments are subpar filler while you wait to get to the meat of the terror, and the camera rolls it’s night vision, and we wait… One minute rolls buy, the tension builds. Another minute passes us, the tension past it’s peak. A third minute trudges on, we are now wondering why this is still going. A forth minute goes by and now we are starting to get aggravated that it hasn’t gotten to the point - and that’s how it goes. They’ve missed the timing, the critical point in which fear needs to be released in order to remain considered fear. And then another two or three minutes later, the subtle act of the door opening itself happens, and I’m already checked out and over it, because for how long a wait just happened the event was so underwhelming it couldn’t ask for anything more than you disgust. Fast forward to the last one, and there are perhaps two subtle moments, at least 7 jump scares, with only 2 of those jump scares even coming close to being effective in some way, and at least 3 of those jump scares being the exact same jump scare! This is the epitome of my aversion to this series - it’s not the the series is the worst thing I’ve ever seen, it’s that it had a lot of potential to do something, got over-hyped by practically the world, and ended up going for the laziest, cheapest way of doing things instead of developing into something truly amazing and standing out.
Paranormal Activity 4: Wait, the Kinect sees what?
The entire franchise is something that I wouldn’t recommend. Sure, some people seem to have found it as frightening as the ad spots would have you believe it to be - but in my book, it’s more of a snore than The Ring. It had great potential, but wants and does nothing with it. The more people you have together when watching it, the more palatable it is - but not for the advertised way. It turns into a “tear it apart” cluster-watch, similar to how a lot of people would watch and enjoy The Room. The last three movies of this franchise I watched was punishment - and you can actually go listen to them in the TISR section of this very site, as I dragged a friend along to each one. I still hope that someday it really hit’s it’s full potential instead of being what it is - heck, maybe even drop the found footage gimmick and go normal movie. If it’s gonna keep the gimmick, maybe just set it up in “a house with hidden cameras” so it feels less like a gimmick and embraces the level of reality that found footage can give. Maybe… but I honestly don’t expect it anymore, and I don’t really want to watch any more of these.