With no sisters left, and the producers already having used up their "get out of sequel with a prequel" card, they're left with no other choice than to follow a new family. How does it tie in? Well, the female neighbour across the street crashes her car, trying desperately to deroute the overall plot(which, along with the mythology, is barely progressed at all here), which is now in unknown condition - it's unclear if it'll ever get back on track. Anyway, while she recovers, her 5-year-old child is to be taken care of by, to her, complete strangers(...do people do that? Seriously?), and our characters(tolerable, some likable, if also questionable): the parents, 15-year-old(yeah, this is teenaged up, not only with her age... jumpscares take over for the long, eerie shots where you feel like you can sense some movement somewhere(expressing a lack of patience, and the gags are largely uninspired), and in place of the great oscillating fan of the preceding entry, we have the Kinect motion-sensor dots seen in nightvision... they get a bit of mileage out of that, still, it's a big step down, and I'm talking about the whole product as well... it's like the even-numbered ones in this series are doomed to suck(this is not as bad as the second one, though, in spite of multiple cameras, since there are no wasted angles, in part because of those we follow, and their amount)) Alex(Newton, girly but not annoying, our lead and pretty sympathetic... and one of the best actors in this, although it tends to be positive throughout), her sarcastic boyfriend Ben(who's admittedly creepy), her younger brother(also 5-ish) Wyatt(and they definitely found two creepy kids - again...) and their parents. Weird things start happening, of course, and we sit around and wait for them to learn what we already know. The pacing is good, considering, with this not losing your interest. There is a bit of disturbing violence and strong language in this. I recommend this only to those needing their now yearly fix of Paranormal Activity. Hopefully, this'll be the only pure cash-grab movie they make in this series... and they'll wise up and make the next one the last one. 6/10
Review of Paranormal Activity 4
