Paranormal Activity Series

 

 

 

 

Okay, well, not yet anyway. It sure is getting close though and what better way to celebrate the month of October than watching scary movies!?

I have currently been obsessed with Season 3 of The Walking Dead that has finally arrived on Netflix but that doesn't mean I can't watch some scary movies too right?

So, to start the month off right, I have chosen a series that I am up to date and very familiar with. The "Paranormal Activity" franchise.

Now this movie series gets some mixed feelings. You have those who love it, those who hate it, those who can't follow it and those who just want to watch it for the sake of another sexy and scared girl on screen.

Me? I personally love the series and I like the scary movies that make you feel like it can really happen to you. As far as graphics, I like what they did. I didn't see any wires, the reactions I thought were awesome, but the fact that the first movie came out without the idea of it as a series and it had an alternate ending sort of ruined it for me, esp since I saw the first one second.

So, let's start with the summary and then I will get to the reviews. Sounds good? Good. Remember, spoilers as always.


Paranormal Activity was created by first time director Oren Peli who was so scared of ghosts that even Ghostbusters terrified him. He wanted to turn his fears into something positive and took over a year to prepare everything to be filmed within his own house. He even studied Demonology and researched paranormal cases, wanting the movies to be as realistic and "truthful" as possible.

Along with the current four that are out, there is set to be two more movies. The fifth movie is set directly after the fourth one and they are both set to be released in 2014. Oren Peli only directed the first one but was a producer for the prequel and the other films in the series.

The series is generally filmed using camcorders, home videos, security cameras and webcam's and it follows a family who turns out to have a terrible secret in their history which leads the current-day members of the family to deal with demonic possession and hauntings.


 The first movie revolves around a couple, Katie and Micah, who slowly become terrorized through the nights by a demonic entity that Katie believes to have been following her all her life.

The second movie starts of several weeks before the events of the first film with the demonic activity affecting Katie's sister Kristi and her family-- a husband and a step-daughter, after she brings home her first child, a son, named Hunter.


The third movie is set to be a prequel for the whole series, showing Katie and Kristi as they were kids and what happened when they were younger to make sense of the events said in the first two movies. This is when they encounter "Toby" for the first time by name.


In the fourth, and latest, segment of the series it deals with a new family that might have something in their history that brings them into the demonic bouts of terror. It is several years after the events of the second movie and Katie is seen moving in next to the family with her "son". The events of this movie tend to affect the new family's son, Wyatt.

Alright. So here is the jist.

I love the series, I really do. I feel like after I watch it that I need to be careful when I walk around my house and that my daughter needs to be checked on because anything can happen. Not to mention my daughter watched the Labyrinth with David Bowie in it awhile ago and decided to name one of her baby dolls Toby. Yeah, that was creepy.

Anyway, I do understand the confusion though and some of the dislike for these movies. First off, if you get vertigo by watching movies that switch back and forth or move around a lot. This series is not for you. With the webcams, security feeds and so on, it can make you a little twitchy.

As for the storyline, I followed it until the third movie when things just didn't seem to completely follow what was said in the second when their past was more revealed, but hey, whatever. Different writers, I get it.

The fourth one was a little harder on me because, well, using the webcam all the time, keeping the computer on, hacking in to the other cams in the house, really?

Sure, I sometimes wonder "why not put the damn camera down and do something!" but that would make for a pretty boring movie.

I do like though how they learned from the mistake of the first film. These movies do not have very many special features except for, maybe, some lost footage every now and then. The "alternate ending" to the first one, whether it was supposed to be a series or not, really takes away from the affect. So, really, if you get the dvd set, please don't watch the alternate ending to the first one, cause, it just sucks.

I do recommend the series though for people who like that "I cant really see it the monster but wait, is that someone breathing cold air on the back of my neck, OMG ITS HERE TOO" kind of thing.  I know I did and I intend to see the last two to see how it all gathers together.



Oh, if you also want to see some online things they did to promote the series and you have a facebook, check out the following link. It really doesn't have to do with the original family, but they did some amazing work trying to promote the series through getting people to interact online.

https://www.facebook.com/mrjacobdegloshi?fref=ts

Well, enjoy my lovelies and feel free to leave a comment on some of the awesome and terribly scary movies you have seen before so I might review them for other's looking for some truly scary, not all about the gore and bloodshed, terror films.