Paranormal Activity 3 (2011)

In 1988, young sisters Katie and Kristi befriend an invisible entity who resides in their home.

Directors:

Henry Joost, Ariel Schulman

Writers:

Christopher Landon, Oren Peli (film "Paranormal Activity")

Stars:

Chloe Csengery, Jessica Tyler Brown, Christopher Nicholas Smith

1 win & 5 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Lauren Bittner	...	Julie
Christopher Nicholas Smith	...	Dennis (as Chris Smith)
Chloe Csengery	...	Katie
Jessica Tyler Brown	...	Kristi (as Jessica Brown)
Hallie Foote	...	Grandma Lois
Dustin Ingram	...	Randy Rosen
Johanna Braddy	...	Lisa
Katie Featherston	...	Adult Katie
Brian Boland	...	Daniel
Sprague Grayden	...	Adult Kristi
William Juan Prieto	...	Hunter (as William Prieto)
Jackson Xenia Prieto	...	Hunter (as Jackson Prieto)
Paitoon Cheng	...	Ida
Eddie Medrano	...	Party Magician
Rebecca Delgado Smith	...	Crying Bridesmaid

Storyline

In 1988, in California, cinematographer Dennis moves to the house of his girlfriend Julie to raise a family with her daughters Katie and Kristi. Little Kristi has an imaginary friend named Toby while weird things happen in the house. Dennis decides to place cameras in the house to capture images during the night and soon he finds that there is an entity in the house. Dennis's friend Randy Rosen (Dustin Ingram) researches the events and learns that his house might be a coven of witches and the children may be in danger.

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Plot Keywords:

imaginary friend | woman wearing only a man's shirt | animate object | whispering | reference to macgyver | 

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Taglines:

Discover how the activity began.

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Genres:

Horror

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for some violence, language, brief sexuality and drug use

Details

Official Sites:

Official Facebook Official site

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

21 October 2011 (USA)

Also Known As:

Actividad paranormal 3

Filming Locations:

USA

Box Office

Budget:

$5,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$52,568,183 (USA) (21 October 2011)

Gross:

$104,007,828 (USA) (30 December 2011)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Paramount Pictures, Blumhouse Productions, Solana Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

83 min 94 min (unrated director's cut)

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital SDDS DTS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The highest grossing film in the Paranormal Activity series.

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Goofs

While Katie's family are driving to Grandma's house, Dennis turns the camera around and from the back-view of the car, two contemporary cars are seen parked in the background as the family drives past them; because the whole cars can't be made out, the "curved" tops are noticeable.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Daniel: [documenting behind the camera] You'll be spending a lot of time in here. This is gonna be your room. There's some kind of animal being de-liced or something. Compression chamber, that's your crib. It's hermetically sealed. And this is your paint color. What color is that, hon?
Adult Kristi: Jamaica bay blue.

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Crazy Credits

In the middle of the closing credits, in keeping with the 1988 period of the film, the Paramount logo that was used circa 1988 is shown.

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Connections

Referenced in Face Off: In the Shadows (2014)

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Soundtracks

Keep Your Hands to Yourself
Written by Jack Dolgen (as Jack Selig Dolgen)
Performed by Josh Koenigsberg, Henry Joost & Jack Dolgen (as Jack Selig Dolgen)

User Reviews

Delivering The Scares

To be honest, I never liked Paranormal Activity movies. It's about people who lived in a house with cameras and there are evil spirits haunting them then all of the events are caught on tape. The idea is interesting but the execution always end up being unsatisfying. Paranormal Activity 3 is the very beginning of the series. It's not actually a prequel. It's more of a backward trilogy to make the ending of the rest of the Paranormal Activity films mysterious. Although, the twist is a little bit predictable but Paranormal Activity 3 has a decent story to tell with these found footage. And it really has the scares. Finally, this series has a genuine scare.

Paranormal Activity 3 reveals all the mysteries of the first two movies. Unlike the first two, instead of watching the lives of these people and wait for the spirits to come out, this one really tells a story through the videos. The story is not anything new though but the execution is decent. The second Paranormal Activity narrates almost everything in the story. Here you don't need it, you just have to look at the video footage to know the story.

Aside from its storytelling, Paranormal Activity is all about the scares. They improved the scares by moderating the slow burns and keep the objects floating. The ghosts aren't quite invisible like the first two. Here, it's campy. You can see its shadows. And of course, there's a lot of threat from the ghost. The scares are more than just jump scares. It has more terror and gumption to the thrills which is kinda fun. The cameras are well shot. Everything is well made. But the twist remains predictable for some reason.

Paranormal Activity 3 is not earning the fear anymore. It's now earning the scares. It's great to see Paranormal Activity with exact scares than wait for more than five minutes to be scared. It's not the scariest horror movie of the year but it's the best part of the series and also the most decent horror of the year. I still wanna see the parts on the trailer that wasn't show in the actual film but Paranormal Activity 3 is satisfying enough in its short runtime. Decent enough as a found-footage-horror-film.