The jumps are lessened, the chills are reduced. The constant sense of uneasiness is replaced by product placement and teens with raging hormones. Well, maybe that just adds to the uneasiness. Regardless, this movie was just bad. And that’s coming from someone who is openly a fan of the series. This movie is basically just a spooky Xbox commercial. And yet here we are with a Paranormal Activity 4 Movie Review.
The movie takes place in a house that features another broken family. The daughter invites her “friend” over at all hours of the night, the dad is never around, and the mom goes on these unexplained trips to places for hours and leaves the children completely unattended at home. Even when they adopt their neighbour’s kid. Oops. Spoiler Alert.
When he’s not watching her sleep, the “friend” comes over and constantly implies that he and the daughter should have sex. Of course, that’s in between his lines for his Xbox endorsement. Anyway, so while he’s doing that, the son is conjuring up some demons from the bowels of Hell alongside the neighbourhood kid who is everywhere at the same time. The son also has the lung capacity of a professional breath holder. It’s a thing.
So some weird things start happening around the house…Like chairs are moved, a ball rolls down the stairs, a knife levitates, a cat jumps near the camera, the car starts on its own. You know, the usual. All of these things happen without any real explanation. Oh, the cameras. How could I forget this blaring plot hole? So the “friend” suggests he should watch the daughter sleep and also proposes the idea of setting up these mini cameras around the house. Because apparently 15 year old kids are made out of money. It doesn’t make any sense at all. You can tell the director was just trying to throw that one in there, hoping no one would notice how unrealistic and illogical it is.
The ending of the movie is absolutely absurd. If you watched the first 3 movies in the series, you will understand why it really doesn’t make any sense. Especially the one scene where there is a completely unexplained mob of people slowly walking towards the house. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever laughed harder during a horror movie.
It has its moments, but it’s really nothing special. It’s clearly the product of a series that has simply run out of ideas. Unlike Things I Fear which can churn out a Paranormal Activity 4 Movie Review on demand, their budget came from their deals with Xbox and the Prius. Incidentally, the Prius is responsible for my favourite line in the movie. All in all, this movie is real digression from an otherwise half-decent series. Worth seeing, but not worth paying for. Then again, who pays for movies these days? Let me rephrase that: Worth seeing, but not worth spending time downloading.
