MovieChat Forums > Paranormal Activity 4 (2012) Discussion > This movie is not as bad as people make ...

This movie is not as bad as people make it out to be!


I'm not a huge fan of this series, but I enjoy it. I really liked the first one, thought the second one was ok but fairly boring. And I really liked the third one. Thought it was the creepiest of all. I went into this one expecting it to be the worst movie of all time. Like up there with Troll 2, especially after reading Harry Knowles (Ain't it cool news" recent review of it calling it "borderline unwatchable". I watched this last night and I do not see how it's any worse than the second one. It was far from perfect, but I still enjoyed it. Here are the pros and cons I came up with:

Pros:

1) Maintains same look and feel as the first three
2) Has creepy children in it, like the third one which I always like
3) Has some good suspensful moments in it\
4) None of the characters were extremely unlikeable
5) Has more Katie in it than the previous 2
6) For being the fourth installment of a horror series, it really could have ben worse.

Cons:

1) Too many unnecesary jump scares that were never actually supernatural related.
2) The editing over all was not the greatest, it seemed to frequently cut out in mid conversation, at least in the extended version.
3) The ending left something to be desired. Kind of confusing and not very scary.

So overall, I think it was a very satisfactory movie for being a part 4. There has got to be some people out there that agree with me right???

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Yeah it was fine, horror series that keep up the quality at all by the fourth film are extremely rare. PA4 wasn't as good as the other 3 but it wasn't a bad addition to the series

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No, it actually is as bad as people make it out to be.






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I also agree. To be honest i actually kind of like #4 more then i liked #3,
but i find i enjoy this entire series as a whole.

The finale of this one got my blood pumping in the theatre in a way that
i hadn't felt since the FIRST movie. When Katie demons up and then just
full on CHARGES the camera, i nearly fell out of my seat!

"You have offended my family, and you have offended the Shaolin Temple..."

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I also agree. To be honest i actually kind of like #4 more then i liked #3,
but i find i enjoy this entire series as a whole.

The finale of this one got my blood pumping in the theatre in a way that
i hadn't felt since the FIRST movie. When Katie demons up and then just
full on CHARGES the camera, i nearly fell out of my seat!


That scene had me like this lol   

"I'm the ultimate badass,you do NOT wanna f-ck wit me!"Hudson,Aliens😬

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I agree, I liked it. But, I have come to appreciate that some people just dislike "fake" scares (thankfully I really like them). There seems to be a lack of appreciation for developing suspense and delivering a scare, and many horror movies get slighted for being technically adept.

Better than PA2! Watch it.

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This is a case of going to the well one, probably all honesty two,too many times.....when you start rooting for the demon ( and I was) it's time to close up shop. This one was a laugher.... so please, for the love of god, no more.

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While I feel this is the weakest entry in the series by far, I do agree it was fundamentally enjoyable and overall a halfway decent little flick.

The main problem I had (and it seems to be echoed by others) is that it's loaded up with too much filler in the first 45 minutes, so the pacing and scares don't have the organic flow of the first three films. It just doesn't give itself time to get under your skin like the last three.

But I did still enjoy it. The climax was absolutely heart-stopping despite only being about two minutes long. I really got the creeps from the "spectral child/figure" in the Kinnect's infared field. And some of the smaller moments like the chandelier crashing were effective jump-scares.

I'd give this one somewhere between a 5-6 out of 10. (Which is about an average, decent score for me) Worth watching a few times, and I'm glad I have the Unrated Blu-Ray for when I do marathons of the series.

And FURTHERMORE, this is my signature! SERIOUSLY! Did you think I was still talking about my point?

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The first paranormal was good the next two were ok, but alright already. They're just redoing the same movie over, like what happens with every successful horror franchise, and like with every horror franchise the idea has pretty much played itself out by the fourth installment (usually quicker)....and P4 is no exception to that rule. As I was watching this, and this happened on some of the earlier installments but a lot more in this one, I'm thinking to myself why are they running around with a camera filming all this sh!t while it's going on. Like in the end when she goes after her brother and father across the street, why would she be filming that while she's chasing them. Stupid and ridiculous. The idea has played itself out. Please no more. No PA5, please....not that I'll see it anyway.

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I enjoyed PA4 also. It never dawned on me that people even considered it to be so abysmal until I came on this board and saw all of the criticism. But I was entertained by it at the movie theater and will probably watch it again on Pay-Per-View.




"I painted a picture of a butterfly!"

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Well I thought it pretty much sucked. Not much happened until the end. and then it was all happening in the course of a few seconds. I do not consider that a good movie. PA3 was pretty good. The best of the 4 infact. This one was the worst.

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I thought it was terrible and I enjoyed 1 and 3, so I'm not a hater of this series. It just didn't have anything going for it. It was slower paced just like 2, another weaker entry, and lacked any sort of... freshness.
I don't mean to impose, but I am the Ocean.

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I have to say I'm one of the people who were disappointed, but not for the reasons everyone else seems to be. I mean, I'm not a fan of jump scares, real or fake, but they're part of the franchise, and horror movies in general, so I roll with that.

However, I do kind of demand a little but of plot to my movie. PA has been spotty with this in the past - the first movie was a great new-genre type thing that got away with not-a-lot of backstory because we knew there would likely be an explanation in future movies. Two had the perfect balance, in my opinion, of a littler history and supernatural context, combined with the action. Three went too far into history and context; while being a very good movie, it didn't tell us a great deal more than the first two had hinted at, and with horror it's always better to hint than show, much like in other genres it is better to show than tell.

Movie four promised a lot of things it didn't deliver. For the majority of the movie we're assuming that Robbie is Hunter, and it's pretty obvious right away that his absent mom is Katie.
We're then treated to a good hour where little to nothing happens, we get no backstory, and some occasional scares. Then very quickly we're told Robbie ISNT Hunter, but we're not told who the heck he is, or how Katie came to have him, or how Hunter ended up getting adopted. I mean, really, what did Katie do, switch Hunter with some random baby in a hospital/orphanage? And if so why? Why did Hunter need to go to a normal family? I mean, apart from so they could all be killed and we'd get a movie out of it.

Basically my gripe is that this movie answered zero questions posited in the movies that came before, and didn't even explain itself. The waiting around is paid off my two minutes of horror at the end, but we never get ANY plot.
That's fine in a stand-alone horror movie, or the first-in-a-franchise, but even the Saw movies had started giving us more information by movie four.

That was why PA4 was disappointing to me. I thought we were really returning to the good old days, when horror-movie-creators actually wanted to tell a story along with all the freaky. This movie really let the other three down in that area.

Anyway, essay-length comment to say, yeah, it wasn't as bad as all that when taken on its own, but it was NOT up to the quality that a fourth movie in this, or any, franchise should be.

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I don't know of too many 4th installments of horror franchises that are anything but garbage additions to the series. Usually when you get to 4, the idea and the story have pretty much played itself out and it's all about cashing in on an overdone formula....and this was no exception.

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Yes, its very bad in that the actors and premise was okay, but the story was dull as hell. Totally pointless.

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