पैरानॉर्मल एक्टिविटी 4

Despite only finding at best mixed reviews, I had high hopes for this film as a fan of the series; the original Paranormal Activity was a refreshing change from what had become a stale and repetitive phase of horror films. I was apprehensive that a sequel would be a disappointment but was, if anything, better than the first installment. I enjoyed the third film to an extent, turning a blind eye to the repetitiveness and weak story. The cliff-hanger ending reassured me that the fourth Paranormal Activity would answer the fairly basic questions which are the only reasons that we feel the need to watch every film in this series.

However, Paranormal Activity 4 is the most disappointing yet. Granted, some moments would make me jump…if those moments weren't almost identical to the ones in the first, second and third films. Not only are the scares hugely predictable, but this installment doesn't even answer any of the questions that audiences have. In fact, it somehow manages to raise more, particularly with the frankly terrible ending – OK, so a long time ago, someone in the original family made a pact to give the first-born male to this Demon. The first-born male being Hunter, who was kidnapped by Katie in the second film. We still do not known exactly what this has to do with the coven of countless women who are seen in the third film, and at the end of the fourth film.

Aside from the hopes of sucking more money from viewers who have been drawn into the original genius of these films, I don't see what is stopping the demon from taking Hunter and that being the end of it. Especially now that the demon has control of a Human body (Katie) and all of Hunters family is dead so there is no one to stop it or try to save him.

Overall, this film was hugely disappointing, failing completely to recover from the slump of story line and structure, which the third film saw. As much as I would love to say that I will not bother watching any more of these films, this wouldn't be true because I need to have my questions answered and find out what it's all about. All we can hope is that they do something a little bit different next time and finally wrap up the story.

That is my advice. I saw it for the first time as a rental, and when I began watching it I feared I had come across a dud but as the day progressed I watched it bit by bit and began to like it.

I agree it is short on scares compared to the first three, but it makes up for it in telling a good story. It all comes together slowly, but by the time the movie ends I feel the viewer is left with a coherent and intelligent film.

And as for the description of the movie as being "boring" I didn't find it boring at all. Everything moves along at a snappy pace, enhanced by lively characters and good acting. Kathryn Newton did an especially good job. She seemed totally at ease in the role of Alex.

I went into the movie not expecting it to be as good as the other Paranormal Activities. They all seemed to go downhill since the first one came out. This one was just too slow. There were the obvious suspenseful scenes but there just wasn't enough. The movie had hope at times but then it was just squashed by rushing through. They didn't go into much detail about the demonic possession and skipped over plenty of unanswered questions. The last twenty minutes of the movie were by far the best. And that is the only reason it got four stars. I do hope they give up and don't plan on making another one. The few screams that the movie did get wasn't worth the $11.50 I paid for the ticket. Wait until it comes out on RedBox.

Awful, definitely the weakest link in the franchise.

I like part 3 and I though the series was back on track after the weak second installment. Guess I was wrong. It's hard to find any redeeming qualities about this film. The story is weak (if you can speak of a story at all), the main characters are annoying from the very first scene on and this movie has no really scary scenes. It mostly relies on tropes that are now trademarks of the series (things moving suspiciously in the house, loud noises, people being dragged by an unknown force) and plays it completely safe. The Xbox Kinect gimmick is interesting at first, but it is so overused during the film that it quickly becomes a marketing pull that hinges on the borderline offensive.

A waste of your time. I think I'm officially done with found footage films for a while.

I am glad I did not pay to go see this film in the theater. It would have been a waste of money not to mention the time. This film was extremely gimmicky; almost as though the company made it like a filler to give the writers more time to come up with a better story, but still wanted to make another couple of bucks by milking the franchise at the same time.

I don't know if it is just me, but I think the last two movies are proof enough that they are showing the symptoms of "Saw Syndrome." A new year, another movie. It takes longer than a year to write a decent script, but I guess that does not really matter to today's audience.