B (ish)

More 'big' moments than Paranormal Activity 2 (the fan-camera is brilliant), but I really sort of hated the ending. The whole thing reminded me of The Last Exorcism's finale crossed with Saw IV's sense of "come back next year for the ending of this movie!"

No, I mean PA3 has an ending that's more abrupt and open-ended than PA2's.

I agree about the very ending. It doesn't feel complete. It was all so short. I expected more from it considering all of the hype about the last 15 minutes. And I too was reminded of the ending of The Last Exorcism.

I still liked the movie a lot. Would give it a B+, though it's not as great as the first two.

I liked the ending better on second viewing, as some things regarding the mythology were clarified for me. Pretty definitely rate the film higher than PA2 now.

How so?

That's cool that you liked it better the second time around.

After watching the first two again this week (first time since opening night), I was fresh on the mythology and assumed we were dealing with the ramifications of Kristy and Katie's grandma's deal with the demon as brought up in PA2. It was only on second viewing that it really struck me (in a major "DUH!" moment) that we're actually watching the deal going down. It's not something that happened in the far-off past, just when the two leads were little girls.

Weren't there a lot, and i mean A LOT of scenes missing from the trailer?

-Mom getting dragged and slammed on her bed
-Some guy gets slammed on the table
-When Kristi throws water in the air
-Kristi with the knocking game
-Kristin playing in the stairs/jumping to the first floor from her bedroom
-The creepy drawings in Tobys "room"
-The electrical wires spark
-The house burns

I honestly was looking forward to a lot of these missing scenes. The movie was OK, a bit boring at times, specially the last 15 minutes that supposed to be the most hardcore part of the movie. Like Mike said, It felt so incomplete and way to short. Obviously not a good as the first two.

HUGE disappointment.

B-/C+

Thank god people started to see the truth

I totally forgot about the grandma's deal in PA2 when watching this movie, so it seemed like it came out of nowhere until now. That's pretty awesome and ties everything together very nicely.

And this was far scarier than PA2. I still LOVED the first, but this was pretty great, I thought.

I think I'm bumping my grade up to a B+. When it works, it really works. And the film's sense of humor really comes across well without diluting scares. How great was the Bloody Mary bit? So many jumps, yet totally hilarious at the same time due to Randy's reactions.

I thought they did a great job for it being a third movie. There are a lot of really well-done moments. And that camera fan is brilliant. My stomach was in knots every time it would go back and forth. I kept expecting something to startle me. I had my leg up resting across my other leg and every time they went to the camera fan I'd put it down because I was scared I'd jump and kick the person in front of me. LOL. Really my only major gripe is the letdown of an ending. It's all just over so fast.

grandma was mentioned on the sequel?! How and when? i dont remember...

Teen Daughter does a Google search that reveals demons go after babies or some such after making deals with people. She figures that someone in the family, grandma probably (or great-grandma), made a deal with the demon for power or wealth, and that's why it wants Hunter.

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3

Okay, I got to watch this yesterday at 1940 with a sold out audience at a decent theatre with patrons who don't comment at the screen or snicker or scream ahead of time, so I was pleased with that. I am one of those who has enjoyed the series. When I first saw #1 and the way it ended I was a bit disappointed but over other viewings and #2 I have accepted that this is how that film works. It builds you up slowly with a little visual thing here or noise there up to a climactic abrupt ending. You would think people would be used to that development by now but hearing people after the show go "boo" or "that was stupid" "dumb" is just annoying to me. Makes me wonder why they even bought a ticket to the film. Did you not see the previous pictures? Anyway, ya that's my mini-rant on the audience after the show comments. I liked the movie. It built things up like before and there were more than a few "gotcha" moments that really did get the audience and they enjoyed it. One moment I have to spill really had me churning because I was sure something bad was going to happen was when the woman was in the kitchen doing you know what. That scene had me covering my face almost. Ooh. I think the highlight of the film was the whole episode with Randy in the bathroom. Audience was eating that whole thing up. "Get it together Randy!" Overall, it's a good once view type thing especially with an audience. I don't think these are good repeat viewing pictures on dvd either but I'd certainly recommend you watch it once to get that audience effect.

Grade - B

Review: http://www.worldofkj.com/article.php?i=482

That was your only major gripe after listing the amount of scenes that were on the TV Spots, but not in the movie??? See?? That should be even more of a major gripe to ya I would think?? And even after they deleted the amount of scenes you listed a few posts back, the movie is still good???

It's fun how the TV spots don't give away the best moments in the film. I highly doubt those scenes were deleted; wouldn't it be more feasible they were shot expressly for the advertising?

If it was the opposite situation, BKB, you would be here bitching how the TV spots ruined the movie, they just showed all the good moments to bring people in, etc.

SO scary. I screamed at the end A-

They were shot for the film, but in a loose way. They shot a number of different variations on most moments to see how they'd come together in editing.

Question: Is seeing the second Paranormal Activity in any way a prerequisite to seeing this one?

Eh, everything I heard about the second Paranormal Activity suggested it was just more of the same from the first one, which I found to be fun but overhyped. This one sounds more fun, and being a prequel I figured I could 'get it' without whatever is in the second film. Is there dense mythology that would somehow make this entry confusing?