Candy and a Movie: Movie #83 Paranormal Activity 4

Paranormal Activity 4 (2012)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2109184/

31 days of horror movies is becoming the 31 days and change of horror movies because of laptop troubles. It will get done. Another P.A. movie probably means an hour of boring security cams in which two things will happen followed by 15 minutes of suspense and ultimately a let down of an ending. I still think that they are a little fun to watch the first time as long as your with someone else and yelling at the screen. "Don't go in there!", "Dude she's possessed", and "Is it over yet?" are all things I've said in the previous ones and some new ones will probably come out this time too. Movie time.

My memory isn't perfect but I believe that this one starts right after the second one ended (because the third is a prequel). Possessed Katie kills everyone, takes the baby hunter and disappears into the night. The movie jumps to Henderson (Henderson!), NV in what I guess is the present time. This time, the story revolves on a family and I'm going to use their real names this time. There's Spend Too Much Time At Work Dad, Normal Mom, Older Sister and 10 Year Old Brother. Older sis has a few people over while her parents are gone and they find a the kid from across the street in her tree house. He is a weird kid who always keeps just showing up.

Older sis of course has an annoyingly, not funny boyfriend who will not stop talking. They're skyping one night and the cops show up at creepy neighbors house. The kids mom has to go to the hospital for a few days so he has to stay with the movie family. Creepy kid brings over all of his things, including a fork that can tell the future. Interesting. The annoying couple is skyping again and she leaves for a really long time. While she is gone, the skype is left on and we see something move by the door. Older sis jumps in the bed and there is the first pop out scare of the movie.

The next day she goes over to the boyfriends house, who creepily recorded her while she was sleeping and we see that the neighbor climbed into her bed while she was sleeping. I don't know which is worse, being snuggled up on by an unknown 8 year old or knowing that your boyfriend records videos of you sleeping. Later in the day she goes back into the tree house and finds creepy kid with her younger brother playing around. They both introduce her to their new friend, an imaginary guy sitting in the corner. Didn't this same exact thing happen in the second, where one of the girls saw a person? You had two years to come up with something new but I guess that wasn't enough time.

The boyfriend walks in on the two kids playing XBOX Kinect with Tobey, the ghost who has his own avatar. THE GHOST PLAYS XBOX Kinect. Later that night they have a dance party with night vision and might have seen something.

NIGHT 1
Older sister wakes up because she hears something. Everyone is sleeping except creepy kid who is downstairs just staring at the fireplace. He also was talking to someone invisible and they slapped him in the dark which causes him to run away.

The night ends with nothing else happening and the boyfriend hasn't had an extremely brutal death yet. Brutal. He shows up and does another pop up scare. Older sister and boyfriend set up a few camera's all over the house so we should see some stuff happen tonight.

NIGHT 3
Because night two was skipped. Creepy kid again leaves his bed at three in the morning and heads downstairs. This time the younger brother plays around with him. Absolutely nothing else happens. Older sister arrives home from school and hears a ball bouncing down the stairs on its own. Again, that already happened in The Changeling, way to be original P.A. 4. She heads up to her room but keeps hearing noises when she should be alone in the house. There's a loud bang and a tail of toys is left in the hallway which leads to a closet in the boys room. She walks inside and a train goes off to add scares. A cat runs by for the same effect. A chandelier falls, almost killing the girl and creepy kid randomly shows up on the ledge. Girl tells her parents that she thinks that creepy kid brought something into the house but no one believes her.

NIGHT 6
This time at two something a.m. and the girl wakes up. She see a bunch of cars outside the creepy kids house and decides to check it out. She sees someone, chickens out and then runs home. Night over again and nothing good has happened. The next day one of the little kids is riding a big wheel around the house (THE SHINING, COME ON WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO RIP OFF NEXT) when chairs start moving on their own and the kid gets off the bike and Tobey drives it around a little.

Creepy kid draws images all over the little brother so that he can "see him". I'm guessing he means Toby and he also adds that Toby does not like the boyfriend. At least I'm not the only one.

NIGHT 7
Back to 3 am. Creepy kid hoes back downstairs and talks to Tobey. He says "they're all sleeping, I'm sure". Finally something that I think is cool, the creepy kid might be setting them up. The sister does some investigating and finds out what the symbols creepy kid wrote on little bro are. It's signs that let a person be possessed. Some friend. There are three steps the the process: 1. The host exhibits signs of being a good ghost host 2. The host shows that he is down with the demon's vibe 3. The host has to spill the blood of an nonviolent. The trifecta.

Later that night, the mom is chopping vegetables and gets distracted when little bro calls for her. When she turns around, the knife is shown to be whisked away into the air and she never finds it. The following day shows the two boys wandering off across the street to the creepy kids house. Sister follows them and just walks inside when no one answers. All the furniture is covered by sheets and one of the closets has a padlock on it. She then bumps into the mom who is Katie from the other movies. That's all that happens. That means the creepy kid doesn't need to stay over anymore, or does it?

NIGHT 9
1:30 in the morning and we see the dad downstairs watching TV when he hears something. Computers and TVs start turning on by themselves. For the third time, something done in many movies already. He turns around and the missing knife drops out of the air, sticking into the table. The mom come down and doesn't care because knives falling out of the air are no big deal to her. Just come back to bed because it will be easy to fall asleep. Big sister interviews the little bro about what happened when he went over to Katie's house and he said that she knew he was adopted and his other family needs him back.

NIGHT 10
Something has to happen one of these nights. Who would keep recording after like a week of nothing? I guess there isn't a whole lot to do in Nevada. The little brother walks downstairs after his door opened on its own. He starts talking to Tobey saying that his he's not the creepy kid. That's it. Please something happen in the next night.

The next day, little brother takes a bath and Toby tries to drown him. The mom isn't watching him because she gets a phone call. The little bro must be able to hold his breath longer than I can because he was under there forever. He says nothing when he gets up, probably possessed or something because there's less than 20 minutes left and this thing has to wrap up somehow.

NIGHT 11
Little bro walks into his creepy closet while his parents argue downstairs because the mom gave older sis a sleeping pill. The brother than talks in to her room where Toby rips her sheets off and he levitates. Not really well though because you can see that her feet were dangling by whatever lifted her. Night over. Seriously?

Sister talks to little bro who is now going by a different name. It's the same name as the creepy kid and according to him, used to be his other name.

NIGHT WHO EVEN CARES ANYMORE

The sister is skyping with her boyfriend again and it looks like Katie is in her house. She is babysitting and hears the garage door open. Boyfriend gets hung up on and the garage door keeps opening on its own until eventually it slams shut and a car starts on her own. While she is stuck up there, little bro hides in his closet and Katie walks into his room. Oh forgot to mention that the garage is filling up with dangerous fumes. Katie tells the brother that he needs to open up the door and that he is "almost ready".

LETS GET TO THE ENDING ALREADY

Eventually she gets in the car and busts through to doors. Of course her parents DON'T BELIEVE HER" because this movie needs to get even more frustrating. Sometime in the next day, the mom gets distracted by a phone call again and Katie strolls up to the little brothers bedroom again. Something falls out of the sky again in front of her, this time a book. Toby grabs her, lifts her up to the ceiling and then drops her what is most likely to her death.

The boyfriend shows up and the moms body is gone. He hears a bang and gets killed when Katie just magically appears behind him and breaks his neck. The dad and sister were out I guess and when they get home she heads up to her room while the dad goes across the street to wear he thinks he saw the little bro. She gets dragged around a little by the spirit and runs across the street for help. The house is pitch black and we hear what might be groans (possibly moans) from the dad. Also there is clear plastic tarps hung up on the walls. I've only seen two seasons of Dexter but that's enough to know that something bloody is about to happen. She sees her dad being dragged around (this is all in night vision by the way) but heads out looking for little brother when she hears his cries for help. Katie appears with a demon face and chases her outside where she finds the little brother who just stands there. She turns the camera around, sees like 100 people walking toward her and then demon faced Katie (maybe it was just her real face not looking so great in the dark) probably kills her although we can only hear because the camera is dropped. Then the movie just ends. IS THAT SUPPOSED TO BE AN ENDING?

FAVORITE SCENE: Not even going to try and make a joke, just didn't like any of them.

MEMORABLE LINES: Look up

OTHER RATINGS: This one is harder because I agree with most of them. Still there are some dorks out there
"They should have called this Paranormal Inactivity" Oh that's brilliant James Berardinelli. I don't think I have ever heard that before. You sound like you were a writer for this movie.

"The jig is up and the joke's on us" Roger Moore. Right? Also a little axe can cut down a big tree, it takes a village to raise a child and something about the bee's knees. The jig is up? How old are you?

"The mood is often playful, with teases and fake-outs that are sometimes humorous and usually right before shocks. Violence is rare, quick and devoid of lingering close-ups. " Andy Webster of the New York Times. This guy writes for the New York Times? Does this guy even know what a horror movie is? I know that whenever I watch one, I hope that the violence is rare and quick. In fact, it would be better without anyone dying or having to be scared in the first place. Also instead of tension being build by a legitimate, ominous subject, I would rather be teased by humorous fake-outs and pop out scares. One of the directors must have paid for this review because there is no way that this came from a professional.

RATING : 2 pieces of already chewed double bubble. This was definitely the worst P.A. yet and that isn't a title you want. That's like being called the worst member of the Westboro church of the worst singer of 98 degrees. I just looked up and the last two of the movies were directed by the same people who did Catfish which I also thought was pretty zzzzz. I usually at least have a little fun watching these whether it be from looking for things moving on their own or stuff like that but NOTHING happened in this one until 3 minutes from the end. And the ending..... you can't just kill people for the sake of killing them, show a bunch of people who we don't know and then end a movie? I mean I guess you can, but you can't be proud of that. Thanks for another movie without a single captivating character worth caring for.

ALTERNATE ENDING: Once, just once, I want to see a found footage possession movie in which every character knows what they are dealing with. They've done this four times now where an hour of the movie is spent not believing in spirits when a whole audience of people is there to see them deal with the beyond. Enough wasting time. This moment never happens in the original ending so I'm writing a new one where we find out about things. First off we are told where Katie went and also where all those people came from. We find out who her son is if the little brother is supposedly her nephew. Finally we find out who is still paying money to see these because its made 42.5 million with a budget of only 5 million.

WHAT WOULD I DO IF I WAS THE MAIN CHARACTER : After I spent all that time setting up cameras to record what was happening at night, I WOULD
WATCH THE DAMN FOOTAGE. There was what like 12 nights and they looked over just 2 of them. Same goes for the other movies.

WHAT HAPPENS IN THE SEQUEL : Probably nothing. You would like to think that some of the profits from this movie would go to paying for real writers but you know that won't happen. At least I think it won't happen. Do you want to know why? Because the creator of this franchise has actually made a deal with the devil to make money off all of these. It's the only logical reason that I can come up with for their success. I'm only like 25% sure though which also happens to be this movies rating on rottentomatoes. I hope it was worth it.