Paranormal Activity 4

And with this film the Paranormal Activity series officially crashes into a brick wall. While not all the performances are bad, the plot has become an illogical mess that exists only to excuse the same story being told for the fourth time. It would be one thing if the series presented itself as an anthology, with Toby attacking different families, but they maintain just enough continuity to hint at a story they’re not telling us.

It’s the fourth film, and we’re given protagonists who know less than the characters from the first film, and far less than us. Keep in mind: the first movie started with Katie and Micah already aware that they were under attack by a demon. All subsequent films feature protagonists who begin with no idea that anything is wrong. At this point I’m ready for a film about Paranormal Investigators who’ve viewed all the previous tapes, and are actively searching for information on the fate of Hunter Rey.

Instead, we get the Nelson family: Skeptical father and mother, Doug and Holly (Stephen Dunham and Alexondra Lee), cute little son Wyatt (Aiden Lovekamp), and teenaged daughter Alex (Kathryn Newton). In short, the exact same cast from the second film, played by different actors, and with different names.

However, a mysterious boy named Robbie (Brady Allen) and his unseen mother move in across the street. We’re told Robbie’s mother has fallen ill and been taken to the hospital, so the Nelson’s agree to let Robbie stay with them…because taking in your neighbor’s kids at such times is perfectly normal. Robbie begins telling people about his imaginary friend Toby, painting weird symbols on Wyatt’s back, and generally acting creepy.

Now, given what I’ve just told you, imagine the most obvious twist that the filmmakers could possibly write. Did you come up with “Robbie is a Red Herring we’re supposed to think is Hunter, Wyatt was secretly adopted, and Robbie was sent by the coven to prepare Wyatt/Hunter?” Congratulations! You win absolutely nothing, because there wouldn’t be enough prizes to go around! Also, no extra points if you figured Robbie's “mother” was Katie (Katie Featherston).

As with 2, the teenage daughter begins to investigate, and what little of value can be found in this film is found there. I actually find Alex to be a bit more charming that Ali, and her boyfriend Ben (Matt Shively) takes an active role in the investigation. It’s a shame they never find out who Hunter Rey is, who the coven are, or any of the other information we already know. The only thing they do uncover is that a demonically possessed person will have to sacrifice a virgin, by tying virgin sacrifice to the symbol on Wyatt’s back. They may have intended us to think Robbie would sacrifice Wyatt, but by this point I already took Wyatt’s status as Hunter for granted, so it was painfully obvious it would be Alex getting axed. Mind you, we don't see the moment of sacrifice, so I can only assume the witches disabled her, and then had Hunter do the deed offscreen.

Most of the conventions of this series seem to be taken for granted now. Barely a word is given to justify the constant filming, and Toby moving things is barely noticed by the characters. Please consider: they review their videos enough to notice Robbie crawling into Alex’s bed while she’s asleep, but not enough to notice flying knives or self-starting cars.

The movie gets points for one of the more creative examples of product placement I’ve seen. The Kinect can apparently produce at least a vague image of Tobey using infrared light. It’s the first time in the series he’s been seen, so hooray!

That’s about all I have to say in this movie’s defense. The parents relation with their children is stilted and unnatural. While it’s true they’re supposed to be having marital problems, I never once believed these were people who actually knew each other. The movie has the same slow pacing as previous Paranormal Activity films, as we watch the characters fail to find out information the audience already knows.

In case you’re wondering the obvious, no, we never do find out why the coven put Hunter up for adoption. They clearly had plenty of people to take care of him, and it’s not like they’d have a lot of trouble finding a virgin for him to sacrifice. It’s just a plot contrivance to put us back with a suburban family in a story that should have moved beyond suburbia.

This film makes it clear just how much this franchise stagnated. The second film ended one night after the original, the third was a prequel. This was the film that should finally have started to move the story forward again, and tell us what happened to Hunter Rey. We technically get the answer, but it’s not a satisfying answer. Even as someone who isn’t a huge fan of the series, I think it deserves better than this.