In October, the Paranormal Activity juggernaut will finally come screeching to a halt in the form of Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension. The film promises to answer every single question raised by all the previous Paranormal Activity movies, up to and including “Why on Earth is the demon called Toby?” and “Are they really still making Paranormal Activity films?”. Better yet, it’s going to answer them in 3D, because you haven’t seen an interminable shot of a static corridor until you’ve seen it in all three dimensions.
But let’s not write the film off yet. Sure, this is the fifth unnecessary sequel to a film that traded on a solitary gimmick. Sure, the entire series quickly exhausted itself by creating an increasingly complicated mythology seemingly on a scene-by-scene basis. And, sure, you’d probably have just as much fun by leaning out of your window and staring at a fence for an hour and a half. But who knows? Maybe Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension will be a stunning return to form. Let’s parse the trailer, just to be sure.
Here’s Katie (from the first film) as seen in 1988 (the setting of the third film). Katie is a child here, but she isn’t a child any more. She grew up into a woman, and then got possessed by a demon, and then killed her boyfriend, her sister and her sister’s husband before abducting their baby. Then she killed a bunch of strangers, joined a coven of witches and then killed her boyfriend again in a flashback that was only experienced by an entirely unrelated Latino character. And now she’s a child again. Clear? Good.
But wait. That found-footage shot of Katie? It was being watched by a set of new characters, who were also filming it on the off-chance that someone would find the footage of it in the event of their death. We’re watching found footage of people watching found footage. It’s stuff like this that makes me wish Paranormal Activity wasn’t coming to an end. If it had continued, then five years from now we could be watching a found-footage movie of people watching found footage of people watching found footage of people watching found footage of people watching found footage of people watching an unbroken 20-minute CCTV film about a staircase.
Right, now all that’s out of the way, we can get to the real conceit of the film. The new characters have discovered an old videocamera. The camera can capture all the paranormal activity that the human eye cannot see. Activity like…
A pond that appears to get a bit lumpy if you really squint at it…
… A tree? Is that a tree?…
… I’m pretty sure this is a demon’s face. Whatever it is, it’s whooshing towards our faces pretty quickly, so thank God you shelled out for those 3D glasses, eh?
… Oh, and the Judderman. You didn’t see any of this in the previous Paranormal Activity films, but that’s only because a) they weren’t filmed on this special camera and b) you didn’t actually see Paranormal Activity 3, Paranormal Activity 4 or Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones because you’re sensible and you understand that life is short.
But back to the film. The little girl from the second image? She’s smashing mirrors and muttering about a bloody mary. At this stage, I know how she feels.
Also in this film: a bunch of people you’ve never seen do their best to recreate a generic psychedelic garage album from the late 1960s.
The trailer ends with an ostentatious special effect that would have been unthinkable in any of the previous instalments – the little girl Shawshanking her way out of her bedroom. Again, having sat through this, I know exactly how she feels.
