★☆☆☆☆
It’s been six years since the original Paranormal Activity was released in Australia. This, the latest and last (supposedly), is the sixth film of the franchise. I’d really love to give it six stars to give this review a devilish opening paragraph, but I can’t. It’s a dud.
Why? The answer’s right there on the billboards: “For the first time you will see the activity”.
The set-up is swift and standard-issue. Yet another young couple, Ryan (Chris J. Murray)and Emily(Brit Shaw), and their seven-year-old daughter Leila(Ivy George with the best performance in the movie), have moved into a big house. Emily’s new-age hippy friend Skylar(Olivia Taylor Dudley)is staying with them for some reason, as is Ryan’s joker hipster brother Mike(Dan Gill)who has recently broken up with his girlfriend. Oh, and it’s Christmas.
While looking for decorations, the characters come across an old camera. Not just any old camera. It’s got extra parts, unexplained lenses, or something. Whatever the reason – it can see ghosts. In the same box are a bunch of VHS tapes, which Ryan and Mike watch one by one. There’s footage of a cult-like family filming one of their daughters as she has visions.
There are some creepy moments to be had as the characters film themselves watching tapes the same camera filmed decades ago. The girl on the tape can ‘see’ them and the room they’re in. She says ‘bless you’ when Leila sneezes. It’s a chilling concept – technology as a conduit for inter-timezone communication. A concept soon abandoned.
The camera can see ghosts, or at least a floating ectoplasm that lingers round the house. It moves things; it grooms little Leila. The problem is, you can see it doing it. It’s right there, hanging in the air like a fart – down the hall, now by the door, now on the stairs.
Sure, things jump out of the screen accompanied by a really loud noise but seeing the ghoul ruins the fun. The best moments of this franchise are when a bedsheet moves, a door slams or a chandelier swings for no reason. It’s the unknown and out-of-shot we’re most afraid of. When there’s a big blob making everything happen, it’s a lot less unnerving. CG-Why?
Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension is in cinemas now.
