Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension (2015) Review!!

Synopsis – Using a special camera that can see spirits, a family must protect their daughter from an evil entity with a sinister plan.

My Take – Personally, I have enjoyed the Paranormal Activity movies (well except the horrid 4th one). Mainly as they were bringing us creative stories, helped to turn the found-footage sub genre from a novelty into a viable film making option, while redefining horror movies for the 21st century and giving audiences thrills & chills with excellent plot twists. The original “Paranormal Activity” (2009) was filmed in the house owned by Oren Peli, who was the film’s producer, director, writer, cinematographer and editor. Peli made that film for $15,000 and it ended up earning nearly $200 million worldwide – almost 10,000 times what it cost. This, of course, was the film that started that billion dollar franchise and, co-produced by Jason Blum, helped him establish Blumhouse Productions, which eventually brought horror fans the “Insidious”, “Sinister” and “The Purge” films, as well as the Best Picture Oscar Nominee “Whiplash” in 2014. And due to Hollywood’s belief – ‘with great success comes enormous sequels!’, like every horror franchise out there, the novelty ran its course. Right after Paranormal Activity 3 (2011), which was evidently the best prequel/sequel to end the series with, cracks in the franchise where visible in the 4th installment ‘Paranormal Activity 4 (2012)‘. While I do think the 5th installment, a spin off ‘Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones (2014)‘ was unfairly written off (common it had some cool ideas & the end – Holy crap!), the 6th & the supposed end of the long running franchise did seem to have the potential to win back its fans for one final good bye with its promise of a franchise-capping story that will answer all of the fans’ questions and take us where no “Paranormal Activity” has taken us before. The question is whether the sixth installment gives the series the ending fans deserve? Well I am going to say – No! Seriously after four sequels and spin-off film, it’s forgotten what a good horror Paranormal Activity from 2009 was. The film is a very disappointing ending to the groundbreaking series.

The film suffers from the same malady as the others – not enough action and not enough dread until the very end. The special effects are good, with paranormal wisps of black smoke looking a lot like those in “Crimson Peak“, and the 3-D gives a very nice depth to the shots of that wide-open house and those spectral images and it serves the few brief action scenes pretty well. Unfortunately, contrary to what the movie’s advertising would lead us to believe, the film is frustratingly fleeting, with even the “Poltergeist” remake doing a better job of showing us “the other side”. This movie has a half-way decent climactic scene, but the story’s ultimate resolution and the final image on the screen elicited dissatisfied groans from my fellow theater patrons. The producers have to understand that throwing in jump scares, and creepy faces every 10 minutes, do not make for a scary film, and does not create suspense. All jump scares create, is a sense of not wanting to be scared. That is all the film is filled with. It does not make for a good film. Basically, this movie gives us the standard “Paranormal Activity” formula, but without a worthwhile payoff. Much like the ghosts that the films portray, the 2015 installment shows that the “Paranormal Activity” movies have outlived their usefulness and should just fade away. The story follows young married couple Ryan and Emily Fleege (Chris J. Murray and Brit Shaw) move into a house built on the land where the home of Katie and Micah stood in the first film. Ryan and Emily have a little girl named Leila (Ivy George), whom they call Lee, and Emily’s sister Skyler (Olivia Taylor Dudley) lives there too. When Ryan’s brother, Mike (Dan Gill), newly separated from his girl friend, comes to stay for a couple weeks, there are then enough unsuspecting people in the house for the ghosts to begin tormenting. While setting up Ryan’s Christmas decorations, Ryan and Mike come across a mysterious box that Ryan says isn’t his. Inside there is a series of VHS video tapes and an old, but uniquely upgraded video camera. The tapes show the young Kristi and Katie, circa 1988, being introduced to Toby (as in the third film) and being taught to make the most of their psychic abilities. That camera has the ability to see and record spectral phenomena. As Ryan and Mike try to figure out what’s really happening on those tapes and record increasingly prominent ghost-like apparitions, Lee is observed talking to an invisible “friend” and behaving very oddly. At first, the brothers try to solve the mystery and protect the little girl themselves. They eventually call in a priest (Michael Krawic), but it starts to look like it might all be too little, too late. Even though the film starts with some interesting developments with some humorous & really effective scenes till all goes to hell (literally). The plot was just so poorly written. They for whatever reason, thought that it was a good idea to create wrinkles in the plots of the earlier movies, by showing older tapes of the 1988 events, and then cutting to “ritual sessions” that weren’t part of the tape in the first place. They show the two sisters being able to see into the newer house. And then, it just stops.

The writers must have forgotten that they put that in there, because they never mention it again. It literally had nothing to do with the plot. All it did was make way for a cheap jump scare. They left a lot of things unexplained, such as where Toby came from, what happened to Kristi, where the ghost camera came from, and all sorts of other points. Director Gregory Plotkin and a quartet of screenwriters – Jason Harry Pagan, Andrew Deutschmann, Adam Robitel, and Gavin Heffernan – do their best to give audiences new characters with this final installment and provide a coherent timeline of events for the life of Katie, who we saw haunted in the first three films, in addition to other minor characters liker her sister and even “Paranormal Activity 2“‘s baby Hunter, instead end up confusing us. The writers of this franchise butcher their old plots, for the sake of a finale. The feeling is that the guys behind the series had an idea and rather than spend the time and invest in a long term story, felt they had to wrap it up in a finale that is as bland as white sheet for a Halloween costume. The series could have benefited from further spin offs to create a bigger scale as now “The Marked Ones” feels more like a standalone film than part of the bigger picture. The surprise factor was 3D format, really it was like seeing the movie 2D format, small ectoplasm in front of you and cheap jump- scares for and spontaneous appearances of the ghost is the movie’s 3D. Format 3D, typical introduction to end a saga (Friday the 13th). The only good part about the movie is that the acting is actually pretty decent. The actors were great for the terrible screen writing they had to deal with. Child acting is hard thing to deal with, and getting used to; it can make giving the sense of realism nearly impossible, but the child actors in this film were pretty decent. They definitely have a bright future ahead of them. On the whole, ‘Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension‘ ends up building more questions than answering the old ones, this is truly a disappointing end to a once promising franchise. The longer you think about the film the more disappointing it becomes. It’s a huge let down for what could have been a solid conclusion to a mixed bag of films, instead doing more of the same and stitching a half thought out plot to close the series. You’d even question if the makers had even watched any of the previous installments, as many will not be tuning into this one.