Paranormal Activity 3 (2011)

In 1988, young sisters Katie and Kristi befriend an invisible entity who resides in their home.

Directors:

Henry Joost, Ariel Schulman

Writers:

Christopher Landon, Oren Peli (film "Paranormal Activity")

Stars:

Chloe Csengery, Jessica Tyler Brown, Christopher Nicholas Smith

4 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Lauren Bittner	...	Julie
Christopher Nicholas Smith	...	Dennis (as Chris Smith)
Chloe Csengery	...	Katie
Jessica Tyler Brown	...	Kristi (as Jessica Brown)
Hallie Foote	...	Grandma Lois
Dustin Ingram	...	Randy Rosen
Johanna Braddy	...	Lisa
Katie Featherston	...	Adult Katie
Brian Boland	...	Daniel
Sprague Grayden	...	Adult Kristi
William Juan Prieto	...	Hunter (as William Prieto)
Jackson Xenia Prieto	...	Hunter (as Jackson Prieto)
Paitoon Cheng	...	Ida
Eddie Medrano	...	Party Magician
Rebecca Delgado Smith	...	Crying Bridesmaid

Storyline

In 1988, in California, cinematographer Dennis moves to the house of his girlfriend Julie to raise a family with her daughters Katie and Kristi. Little Kristi has an imaginary friend named Toby while weird things happen in the house. Dennis decides to place cameras in the house to capture images during the night and soon he finds that there is an entity in the house. Dennis's friend Randy Rosen (Dustin Ingram) researches the events and learns that his house might be a coven of witches and the children may be in danger.

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Plot Keywords:

Loose Tooth | Vhs | Fear | Nonlinear Timeline | Boyfriend Girlfriend Relationship | 

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Taglines:

It Runs In The Family

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Genres:

Horror

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for some violence, language, brief sexuality and drug use

Details

Official Sites:

Official site Official site [jp]

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

21 October 2011 (USA)

Also Known As:

Atividade Paranormal 3

Filming Locations:

USA

Box Office

Budget:

$5,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$52,568,183 (USA) (21 October 2011)

Gross:

$104,007,828 (USA) (30 December 2011)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Paramount Pictures, Blumhouse Productions, Solana Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

83 min 94 min (unrated director's cut)

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital SDDS DTS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Most of the scenes in the trailers are not in the actual movie which angered many fans of the series.

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Goofs

While driving the Mercedes to the house of grandma, the gauges on the dashboard clearly show speed is zero and the engine is cold.

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Quotes

Randy Rosen: She got blown in the face!

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Crazy Credits

During the end credits, sound effects from the film can be heard.

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Connections

Featured in Shameless: A Great Cause (2012)
The Gallaghers watch a bootleg of this movie

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Soundtracks

"Happy Birthday to You"
Written by Mildred J. Hill (as Mildred Hill) & Patty S. Hill (as Patty Hill)

User Reviews

It Runs In The Family

PA3 is a prequel to the previous two films in which we find out the origins of the paranormal entity that haunted Katie and Kristie when they were adults. It is safe to say that there will be many moments in the film that will make you jump out of your seats and make your jaw drop in pure terror.

This is the third film in the successful PA franchise that has since replaced SAW as the annual Halloween event. The formula has been established, and perhaps you already know if you'll watch this film or not. However, let me say this: the trailer is misleading. If you know me, I'm very much against movie trailers that spoil almost everything, so I loved how the marketing team approached this film. About 90% of the scenes in the trailer don't appear in the film, so the scares are actually much more satisfying, effective, and shocking this way, and thank goodness for that because I felt that the trailer was way too cartoonish and cheesy.

Suffice to say that this film is successful in almost every way. Because this is the third film in the series, you may think you know what's going to happen. However, the film pretty much plays against your expectations on almost everything. For example, minimalism and subtlety is pretty much thrown out the window. If you were tired of the doors opening and shutting and the lighting flickering on and off in the first two films, PA3 will show you things you would never have expected would happen in a PA film. I'm not going to lie, there are some pretty elaborate and creative scares here, and most of these scares come from the genius addition of the oscillating fan camera, in which the camera rotates left to right. This not only makes for great use of effective jump scares, but also for the building of suspense and dread as we see things the characters don't.

In terms of jump scares, there are many that appear. While many people might complain about this, the film really succeeds in building up the tension that we know that something startling is going to happen, and that's what makes it so fun and unnerving to watch. This may be counterproductive because what made the first film so scary and unique (to me) is the lack of jump scares and the lack of anything elaborate in general. In PA, the simplicity is what makes it so great, relying on the viewer's imagination to create the fear so showing all these scares in PA3 pretty much goes against everything established in PA. However, I'm not going to hold this against the film because the scares are orchestrated so well with the timing and editing that it doesn't matter at that point.

I also want to point out that the scares come earlier than expected. It seems as if the directors know what the audience wants, so they're giving it to them. Not only is the quantity of scares much higher than the previous two films, but the quality of them are pretty great too. There is surprisingly a lot of humor added in the film as well. The film seems self aware of itself and has some fun with it. The character development is much better here than that of the second film. The parents are good as they are, but I have to say that the two girls were pretty great. This film proves that just because there are kids in a film doesn't mean they have to be bad and annoying.

The only flaw I can find about the film is the climax because it was eerily similar to another horror film that was released a couple of years ago. However, I will say that PA3's climax was very terrifying to watch. Overall, if you didn't like the first two films, you'll like this one the most. If you're a fan of the series, you'll obviously like this one. And if you want to watch things that go bump in the night, PA3 is one of the best out there.