The Dead Paranormal Activity Thing 3

Here's a little roundup of some (okay, three) scary movies that I've seen in the past couple of weeks -


The Dead

Another day, another zombie movie.  And it's pretty solid.

Set in present-day Africa during the inevitable zombie apocalypse, a plane carrying U.S. aid workers crashes into the ocean during evacuation.  The only survivor is an engineer, who must brave the undead-infested countryside to reach the nearest airbase, where he hopes to be able to find an aircraft to take him back to America and to his family.  Along the way, he teams up with an African soldier, who's on his way to the same base to find his son.  What follows is a kind of buddy movie, as the duo must battle not only the zombie menace, but the harsh environment as well.

Like I said earlier, it's a solid movie, straight-up and serious.  Setting the movie in Africa gives it a nice flavor, unique to this particular horror sub genre, with a moody African-tinged musical score, plenty of epic scenery and lots of local color.  Storywise, there's not much originality.  It follows the classic George Romero zombie rules (slow-moving, infectious bites, shoot 'em in the head, yadda yadda) and fits in well with that series of movies.  The acting is hit-or-miss, but the gory special effects are well done and there are a couple of creepy standout sequences, one in particular where a character hides up in a tree while zombies slowly shamble past beneath him.  The directors of the film, the Ford Brothers, apparently went through hell to get this film made, nearly losing their lives on a couple of occasions.  If there's a Making-Of documentary on the DVD, that would make it worth purchasing all on its own, but the movie's well worth a look, too.

The Thing (2011)

First came the short story "Who Goes There?" by John W. Campbell, about a shape shifting alien in the Antarctic who infiltrates a scientific outpost, imitates the locals, and causes much paranoia and chaos.  It was adapted into a movie in the '50s as "The Thing From Another World", directed by Howard Hawks.  It left out the whole shape shifting aspect and made the alien a 7 ft-tall humanoid plant, but is still classic, B-movie fun.  In 1982, horrormeister John Carpenter re-adapted the short story, bringing back all the shape shifting stuff and adding Kurt Russell.  At the time, the movie was hated by most film critics and was a major box office flop.  Now, 30 years later, it's considered to be one of the finest horror movies ever made (I agree).  There was an official video game sequel for PlayStation 2, produced by John Carpenter and also called "The Thing".  It was was scary good, and a nice expansion of the '82 movie.  Currently in theaters is a prequel to the '82 movie, also called "The Thing".  Directed by Mathis von Heiningen, the movie extols the fate of the Norwegian camp, who originally dig the Thing out of the ice and are overcome by it before it heads out to bother Kurt Russell and the American outpost in John Carpenter's film.

It's an okay movie.  Mary Elizabeth Bastard, um, I mean Winstead, plays an American paleontologist who is hired by the Norwegians to study the Thing, until it begins imitating people and causing mayhem, trying to get to the mainland where it can absorb and copy as many people as it wants.  This movie is a prequel, but sometimes feels like a remake, since many scenes come across as slightly faded Xerox copies of scenes from the '82 version.  Adding a female main character to the mix doesn't really change any story dynamics - I just thank God they didn't add an unneeded, cliche love story - but it's always good to see Winstead on screen (she's a highly underrated actress, in my opinion).  The other actors do fine jobs with what little character development they get (the '82 crew was much more well-defined), but the filmmakers try hard to recapture the magic of the Carpenter film, and succeed to a certain degree (the music is alright, especially when the music from the '82 film makes its return).  The film's plot dovetails nicely into the beginning of the '82 movie, and the combination of CGI with animatronic special effects works extremely well sometimes, not so well at other times (it's too well-lit).  All-in-all, the movie is a decent monsterfest, nowhere near as good as the Carpenter version (or the Hawks version), but not bad, either.  And, true to form, it's currently being hated my most critics and is flopping hard at the box office.

Paranormal Activity 3

Another prequel.  Okay, "Paranormal Activity 2" was mostly a prequel as well, because it largely takes place just before the events of the original.  Part 3 takes place 18 years before the original and follows sisters Katie and Kristi as little kids, unveiling the origins of how the unseen demon first came to be linked to the girls in the first place.  Their step dad conveniently happens to work in the realm of videotape editing, so he sets up a couple of old school video cameras to record the paranormal events that begin occurring around their normal suburban home (who knew that old-time VHS tapes could record in Hi-Def as well as widescreen!).  And did I mention that young Kristi has an imaginary friend named Toby. . .

This is the weakest of the the three PA's, but to leave it at that would be a disservice.  It's still a pretty damn good "found footage" flick.  Sure, it's the same old shtick as the other ones, but there are some very well done scares in this movie, even though a couple of the best ones are "false scares".  In particular, I enjoyed the Bloody Mary scene (different from the one in the trailer) and the whole person-under-a-sheet-pretending-to-be-a-ghost bit.  Good 'ol funhouse scares.  The step dad even attaches the camera to an oscillating fan mount, so that, as the camera turns from side to side, we eagerly (and agonizingly) await for something spooky to enter our view - an awesome idea!  Heck, this movie even exploits the inherent creepiness of Teddy Ruxpin!  The actors all seem to give more naturalistic performances in this movie than the actors in the previous films.  Directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman (makers of the good documentary "Catfish") apparently brought their doc knowledge to bear.  The big problem with this movie comes with the end sequence (which I won't give away).  What could have been a great cat-and-mouse suspense scene turn out to be more maddening than creepy.  Okay, so you're being chased - why wouldn't you put down the enormous VHS camera and, more importantly, SHUT OFF THE BLARING CAMERA LIGHT, especially when you're trying to hide.  I know, I know, because then we wouldn't be able to see what's going on.  Yeah, okay, but it's still annoying.  The movie ends with a rather painful looking death, but it feels a bit unsatisfying, probably because there are still some questions lingering in mind.  What about the house fire?  What exactly happened to their mother, and how come they talk about her in Parts 1 and 2 as if she was still around?  What about Katie and Hunter?  What about the origins of the "cult"?  Who took the box of video tapes, and, more importantly, who found them and edited them into movie form?  Will there be another prequel where Thomas Edison, with the prototype film camera, records some paranormal activity and discovers the very beginnings of the "deal with the demon"?  No, that would be silly - so I say "go for it"!

While I felt that it was (overall) the most unsatisfying of the three PA's, it's still a pretty good scare flick.  There is going to be a Part 4, guaranteed, so maybe all my questions will be answered there.  Or not, we'll see.