Paranormal Activity 3

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3 (2011) - Nov. 19, 2011
About more filmed paranormal shenanigans, this time revolving around Katie and her sister as children.  Like the first two, this film is pretty great at building up and maintaining suspense (a camera that automatically pans back and forth on a fan head is actually a fairly ingenious device to ramp up tension).  But it was easily the weakest of the three films -- I don't normally say this, but this movie was too short.  The film really would have benefited from a little more breathing room around the nighttime stuff, and a little more character development.  It felt a little too pruned-down and spare.  It also had an ending which I'm assuming is setting up a sequel, because taken on its own it raises far more questions than it answers.  But for the third installment in a Saw-esque yearly horror franchise, it's actually pretty damn good (Saw was already pretty lousy by part three).  ***