It has been five years since the disappearance of Katie and Hunter, and a suburban family witness strange events in their neighbourhood when a woman and a mysterious child move in.
By now news of more sequels was met with little enthusiasm, the franchise was waning.
Even though this was entry number four in the series it was the first actual sequel in the series with the prior two films being prequels. With that being said it’s fair to say that sequel fatigue had set in and this film was met with groans rather than warmth. It’s highly understandable as by now the series had not exactly tried to do anything to keep it interesting.
With this being an actual sequel there was some intrigue as to where the story would go after the events of the previous 2 films, we now ad a whole backstory built up and this was to be the film that was to push the franchise forwards and continue the story. Unfortunately this film, whilst having an average 90 minutes runtime, was 80 minutes too long.
The story is padded out with a lot of unneeded material, having to watch two teenagers flirt badly with each other, especially the character ‘ Ben’ who just follows ‘Alex’ around like a hormone raged lapdog. I can deal with it in short bursts in films as I understand the character building aspect but this just gets cringeworthy after a while and quite annoying.
Unfortunately the other characters, including the children who are supposed to be important to the plot, don’t do much more to make it any more watchable. It also doesn’t help that not very much happens and it has an ending that will leave you scratching your head. Sadly, Stephen Dunham who played the father ‘Doug’ died on September 14, 2012 of a heart attack, shortly before the film was released.
“Paranormal Activity 4” is a weak sequel and in all honesty the franchise should have ended here.
Miscellaneous facts about the film:
The parents in the film, played by Stephen Dunham and Alexondra Lee were a real life married couple.
Brady Allen’s character, Robbie, was named after Robbie Mannheim, a child that in 1959 was alleged victim of an evil possession and he had a exorcism to save his life.
As with the previous three Paranormal Activity movies, Paramount Studios utilizes paranormal investigator/researcher, Christopher Chacon, (who is recognized as one of the world’s foremost authorities on paranormal phenomena), to internationally promote and publicize this fourth installment. Chacon also works in the entertainment industry as a writer, director and producer.
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