The third installment takes us back in time for more scares in an occult background story with horrifying reveals . 

• Scare factor: ★★★★★
• Entertainment factor: ★★★★★
• Demon factor: ★★★★★
• Cult factor: ★★★★☆
• Occult factor: ★★★★★
• How shaky is the camera: not shaky

Paranormal Activity 3 is the third installment in the franchise and takes us back to Katie and Kristi’s childhood when it all started. We learn more about the demon hunting them and why this is happening to them. It stars Chloe Csengery, Jessica Tyler Brown, Lauren Bittner, Christopher Nicholas Smith, Hallie Foote. Directed by Henry Joost, Ariel Schulman. Written by Christoper Landon, Oren Pei. 

Duration: 1h 23m

Plot

Before we go back to the past we first see Katie arrive in Kristi’s house in 2005 just before she moves in with Micah. She has some boxes she wants to store in Kristi’s basement. In these boxes are old VHS tapes from their childhood. After the break-in at Kristi’s the tapes are gone. In this third sequel we learn what’s on them.

We start at Katie’s birthday party when she turns eight in 1988. She is celebrating her birthday party with her sister Kristi, her mother Julie and Dennis, Julie’s boyfriend. Dennis is filming everything while he is a wedding photographer and filmed. But something strange is going on with Kristi. She is talking to Tobi, her invisible friend but acts like he’s very real and he does get upset sometimes. 

When Dennis wants to film having sex with Julie and an earthquake hits and we can see dust falling from the ceiling which falls on an invisible figure that has the shape of a person. So Dennis decides to investigate this phenomenon with Randy, who is helping him with his business. He senses that something is in the house with them, but Julie doesn’t believe them. He sets up camera’s in the girl’s bedroom, in their bedroom and even installs a camera on the rotating part of a ventilator so it has both a view  of the living room and the kitchen. 

Scary things show up at the camera and the situation with Kristi and Toby gets worse. Katie gets attacked with Randy when he is babysitting her when they are playing the Bloody Mary game in the bathroom. All these ordeals drive the family to Lois, Julie’s mother. When they arrive things aren’t getting better but far more worse and Dennis realizes who and what is responsible for the hauntings. Only when it’s too late.

Continue reading below this announcement.

Short Review

This installment is a prequel to the sequel that was already a prequel to the first film. In other words we go to the origins of the demonic activities. Each film we go further back in time to learn by a retrospective effect what is really is going on and why. While that often means that the films get less scarier by explaining what’s happening, that’s not the case with these films. Each film comes up with new tricks to play with in the found footage genre to make up original scares that are very effective and keep surprising us every time. This third installment returns to suspense, suggestion, but the hauntings are also more palpable. A sheet is being pulled from the bed, Katie bumps into an invisible Tobi and she is pulled up by her hair floating in the air and it seems that Tobi has a strange sense of humor. 

Dennis is the driving force behind the camera’s and bound to know the truth, like Ali was in the second movie and Micah in the first. He investigates, sets up the cameras and even looks up more information in books. He worries about the two girls and also about Julie who choses to ignore it all and attributes it to Kristi’s imagination. He is a sense the narrator of the story and we follow the story through his eyes. When Randy is babysitting Katie he takes up the camera, which gives another perspective to the hauntings and is cause for a scary scene in the bathroom. Both Dennis and Randy create a more relaxed and fun atmosphere without taking away the scary vibe.They add to the unique vibe and own voice and perspective of this installment. Julie though, is a character more in the background and who doesn’t believe him.

The main focus is on the girls and on Kristi specifically. She’s Tobi’s main target and at the end we find out why. By watching the first two movies we already know what Tobi’s intentions are but this is the first film where he is named and acts like a character in the film. He talks to Kristi although we can’t hear him. But Kristi’s reaction to him is very real and believable. When Kristi gets scared of Tobi, he attacks Katie to make Kristi do his bidding. Tobi is the most active in this prequel, although never seen which makes him even more scary. 

While in he first film it seemed like Katie is the main target we find out in the second film that is was actually Kristi who was possessed first and now we learn that Tobi was after Kristi from the beginning. Not only does Tobi force Kristi to do thing but he physically attacks Katie in a unexpected ways. While he was physical in the first two film now he has become even more psychical and makes himself psychically present by touching and grabbing Katie and slashing Randy in the stomach. 

Although those are scary scenes, the scene where he scares the babysitter Lisa is the most scary scene. While Lisa is sitting in the kitchen the camera turns left and right in a very slow pace, painfully slow even. This effect is rather scary because can’t see what’s happening on the blind side, until the camera turns back. This takes a very long time and that builds up tension and you expect something every time the camera the camera turns back. And when it finally does, Tobi has hidden himself under a white sheet like a real ghost and when Lisa looks up it suddenly drops to the floor. It’s a scary but very original and creative scene that goes all out what is possible to do with found footage and scares seen from an eighty site of view. 

With no tricks on the camera, just a plain camera recording the events they use smart tricks to make this film as scary as the first one. While this third film is set in the eighties, when the camera’s weren’t that technically advanced, they couldn’t use special tricks to add to the scares. This forced them to be creative and to attach the camera to the moving part of a ventilator to have a full view of the open space is not only very creative but also very smart because that creates even more tension to build up to a really great scare. There are a lot of scares that have to do with how the found footage was filmed, but the story itself is very scary too.The little nightly outings Kristi goes on are creepy too and the two girls act incredibly well as if it’s all real. Especially the ending is a big twist that is cause for a horrifying and creepy reveal.

SPOILERS:

Ali already found out that if you made a pact with a demon he will claim the first born son. Now we learn who made that pact. It’s Lois and we even hear her ask Julie if she wants to have another child. When they arrive at Lois house, Dennis wakes up at night hearing cars coming. He not only finds the house full of boring candles but also symbols, the same symbol that was drawn inside the closet in Katie and Kristi’s room. And he finds a group of women who come after him. These women are gathered for the wedding between Kristi and Tobi and even Katie is possessed. This time Julie and Dennis are both killed by Tobi himself, whereas he used Katie in the first two films to kill Micah and Kristi and Daniel. 

We can conclude that while Tobi is a demon, the real evil here is Lois, she even sacrifices her own daughter and uses her grandchildren to get what she wants. 

Remains the question that Micah refers to Katie’s mother in the first film, but now we have seen her die. In the sixth installment they give an answer to that question. Both Katie and Kristi don’t remember anything about what happened and they were raised by a woman who pretended to be their mother, haven forgotten all about their real mother and Dennis. That makes Lois an even more evil villain. Still the question remains who has taken the tapes from Kristi’s basement.

Read more about the Paranormal Activity franchise:

• Paranormal Activity (2007) review
• Paranormal Activity 2 (2010) review + explained
• Paranormal Activity 4 (2012) review + explained
• Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones review + explained
• Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension (2015) review + explained