Catfish Branch-Out
My attention was elsewhere when it was announced last May that Catfish co-helmers Henry Joost and Ariel Schuman would co-direct Paranormal Activity 3 (Paramount, 10.21). I felt Paranormal-ed out after part 2, but the Joost-Schuman plus Joe Leydon’s Fantastic Fest Variety review makes me want to again submit.
“Paranormal Activity 3 earns points for its low-key ability to keep viewers primed over long stretches to expect that something very bad, or even worse, may happen at any moment,” Leydon writes. “Slightly slicker and more densely populated than earlier pics in the franchise, the Oct. 21 Paramount release should play well with any fans who haven’t already tired of the found-footage gimmick.”
Good. 2 wasn’t as good as 1, but I liked them both, and if he says this is the best, I’ll be there opening weekend.
The bit in one of the trailers with the kids in the pitch-black bathroom is a winner. If nothing else, these films show you can do some decent horror without resorting to stupid CGI.
I’ll never understand why the Blair Witch people thought it necessary to ditch the doc format. Somehow all agreed that expensive and terrible was the way to go.
I’m betting AO Scott will not be a fan of PA3. If you wanna read a dickish and personal review, check out his Catfish pan.
I was genuinely rattled by the first one and simply bored by the second.
The first film was a novelty that worked and was truly scary — little more than a homemade pastiche that wanted to do one thing and then did it, very well. The second was trash — and boring trash — without a single tense moment. Endless shots of a pool vaccuum moving around by itself — TERRIFYING!
Can’t hate these movies. They’re made for nothing, they make BANK, and they’re entertaining enough in the dark. Beats more torture pr0n anyday.
Exactly what Ray said. If this is the worst thing that comes out this month it will never be as bad as Saw XIII: Tobin Bell eats a sandwich.
The first one was good. After that, they decided that the best way to be scary was to expand and explain the mythology, which is pretty much always deadly to a horror movie, and #2 was no exception and this appears to be even less so. (Especially the bizarre choice to maintain the conceit that increasingly makes less and less sense within the mythology they’re spinning.)
>The bit in one of the trailers with the kids in the pitch-black bathroom is a winner.
Yeah, that bit is great. It’s kinda Candyman redux, but a hell of a visual reveal… subtle and scary.
It’s an effective moment, certainly, but it’s a bit easy. There’s no actual surprise to it. I’d give it a lot more credit if they managed to subvert the expectation a bit.
@BobbyLupo
Would you care to explain? The best idea I could come up with for that scene would be to have her waiting for the children in the room. That set-up seems to be the best option for that scene.
“I found Eduardo Sanchez.”
Colin – I’m not sure what there is to explain; I’m saying that, from the moment when they start chanting the name into the mirror, you know exactly, beat for beat, how it’s going to play out. It’s effective, but it just seems really obvious. It’s just a jump scare. The first movie, unless it was a clip from the last minute of the movie, it would just be that as they’re starting to leave, suddenly the picture falls off the wall or smashes into the mirror. Still just a jump scare, of course, but a bit more minimal and less on-the-nose, exactly-what-you-expect.
The worst thing, to my mind, for a horror movie is for it to make the audience feel “safe” by sticking with normal conventional scenes. The first one did a great job of off-setting this; the ouija board bit was a cool WTF moment, and the picture in the attic made no sense but was scary, if only because of her reaction.
I will say, I like how dark the shot gets. But if you don’t know exactly what’s going to happen by the time they’ve turned out the lights, you just haven’t seen enough movies.
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