Official Synopsis
Paranormal Activity 4 continues the shocking story of the evil surrounding Katie and her nephew Hunter as a new family begins experiencing unexplained events that quickly turn deadly.
Paranormal Activity 4 ranks somewhere between 2 and 3, when it comes to scare value.
First, let’s recap what we have up to this point.
The first film contained really great moments where the terror and suspense would just keep building and building, as our favorite demon slowly starts to tear Katie and Micah apart. Maybe it was the newness to the film that made it unique, but regardless it still gives this reviewer goosebumps and it still is the best in the series.
When the second one was released, it seemed to stretch out the same type of terror as the first, but really didn’t bring anything new or intense to the series. It felt a bit bland and repetitive initially. Honestly, I wasn’t a real fan of the second film and was afraid that it lost what it created from the original.
The third film came along and revived it all. As the story dipped into the past of Katie and her sister, and Toby, which provided a fresh take on how terrible the demon could be. It refreshed those moments of terror that we discovered in the first film and provided a very new avenue for the story to ride out.
The fourth film really does fall between the second and third. It doesn’t provide a solid street for the story to unfold, but it does contain some really terrifying moments.
The story is hurt because it relies on an outside source to witness Katie’s latest horror show. While it does bring a new element to the series, it just doesn’t work as well. The connection between the family and Katie (and Robbie) is forced. It doesn’t fit as well into the overall arc of the film series, as you probably will end up scratching your head on how Alex (played by Kathryn Newton) and her family are even involved with Katie. The story will tell you that Katie had an emergency and Robbie ends up with Alex’s family for a period of time, but the connection isn’t strong at all. You never fully figure out why this happened and even worse is that you never figure out why Alex’s family accepts this situation. It’s as if the story is just slapped onto a smaller subplot that wasn’t carefully thought through. I still don’t’ fully understand what happened at the end of the film, which I won’t spoil for you.
Story aside, if you’re looking for some good scares then you’ve come to the right place. First, you get the shocking moments that you’ve come to know. Tricks with cameras and clever editing piece together some pretty jumpy moments. The knife scene alone will probably make you tinkle a bit in your pants. My wife warned me about it, but I didn’t fully understand it until I jumped a bit. Second, you’ll also get those creepy moments where you’re staring at the television looking closely for the ‘thing’ out of place. Tons of those moments will rear their ugly heads to add intense value to the experience in Paranormal Activity 4. Lastly, the film brings the ‘unknown’ element that all the previous contain. You’ll have a hard time piecing together the continuity of it all, but it slowly brings it back in order (though, I still don’t get the ending — I blame my dense intelligence for such confusion). So, in short, what I’m saying is that the aurora of all the films exists very much with this one. You will have some adrenaline kicks, jumps on the couch and moments of rewinding (old school term) the movie to catch something that you didn’t catch before. The value is high when it comes to these elements of Paranormal Activity 4.
Regretfully, the lack of story continuity really hurts the overall value of the film. The scares aren’t enough to make up for the bland story that seems very much out of place.
As for the Blu-ray portion of the movie, it’s darn good. While you won’t get an Avengers-like quality out of the video, it’s still a heckuva lot cleaner and prettier than previous films in this series. You get some great lighting (especially the kinect scenes), clean/crisp video and solid HD transfer. Is there graininess? There has to be because of the ‘raw video’ motif the film carries with it. That’s the trick of the film, though, you’re supposed to squint and see if you really saw that thing in the corner move on its own. The video has to be of questionable quality to fully feel the effect of what it’s trying to do. So, I will forgive the movie for those moments because they were done on purpose. It’s a solid HD picture quality overall.
As for features, here’s what you’re looking at:
o Original Theatrical Version of the Film (HD)
o Unrated Version of the Film (HD)
o The Recovered Files—nearly 30 minutes of found footage
Much like when the Blair Witch project was released by Artisan (haha, forgot about them until this moment), Paranormal Activity 4 is trying to pass off fiction for reality, therefore you can’t have too many ‘making of’ features. What you do get is two solid versions of the film and 30 extra minutes of footage ‘found’. Beyond that, nada. Which, again, is what enhances the aurora of the film a bit more. Heck, the menus are even bland and lifeless, which is what brings another layer of realism to cake of horror.
