Paranormal Activity 4 (2012) - Found footage franchise shows wear and tear

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A disturbing shadow over a sleeping blond girl on a surveillance cam still makes up this poster for Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman's Paranormal Activity 4

Several years after a mother and her son go missing, they suddenly turn up, apparently without having aged, in a home across from a normal family with an adopted son, who in turn becomes friends with the reappeared boy...

 

Paranormal Activity 4 is written by Christopher Landon (Viral (2016)), with Chad Feehan (Banshee (2016, TV-series)) contributing story elements, and directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman (Catfish (2010), both). It is the 4th film in the Paranormal Activity franchise (2009; 2010; 2011).

The filmmakers skip explaining why the family has recording devices capturing everything that happens in all the rooms of their house. Some are webcams that never turn off (...) but apart from these? This makes the scares limited, as we follow the blond girl around, while she also records everything. 

The family is gratingly ordinary, making at least me wonder if I would also appear that ordinary if captured on various devices in my home (impossible!) But the naturalness achieved is nevertheless impressive. SPOILER Children that shift loyalty to unseen forces are scary, and the film's last minutes, before a regular witch army is revealed for a very short time (witches again, yes), are effective. But the formula shows its weak points too often here in the 4th chapter.

 

Related posts:

 

The Paranormal Activity franchise: Paranormal Activity 3 (2011) - Franchise returns to creepy 1988-set beginnings (also by Joost, Schulman)

2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]  

2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 

Paranormal Activity 2 (2010) or, Haunted California Idiots

Paranormal Activity (2007) - Peli's record-breaking found footage horror smash 

 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 5 mil. $

Box office: 142.8 mil. $

= Mega-hit (returned 28.56 times its cost)

[Paranormal Activity 4 premiered 27 September (Austin Fantastic Fest, USA) and runs 88 minutes. Shooting took place in the summer of 2012 in Nevada and Los Angeles, California. The film opened #1 to a 29 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another weekend in the top 5 (#4), grossing 53.8 mil. $ (37.7 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 9.5 mil. $ (6.7 %) and Australia with 7.8 mil. $ (5.5 %). It additionally reportedly made more than 9.7 mil. $ on the North-American home video market alone. The franchise returned with Paranormal Acitivity: The Marked Ones (2014) with Landon taking over as director, and 2 more sequels. Joost and Schulman returned with 5 shorts and a video prior to their theatrical return with Nerve (2016). Paranormal Activity 4 is rotten at 23 % with a 4.20/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of Paranormal Activity 4?