Since I read the review at Man, I Love Films, I knew going into this one that it wouldn't set my world on fire. If you think Paranormal Entity looks like a me-too version of Paranormal Activity, well, son of a bitch, you're a rocket scientist.
Instead of following a young couple, the movie centers on a mother and two siblings. The dumbass holding the camera this time is the male sibling, and in the beginning he's quite the Micah-esque douche. He gets a little better with his asshole nature as things progress, but I'm not giving anyone credit for this one. Sorry. In fact, maybe he should have ramped up his dick behavior like Micah in Paranormal Activity. That way, it's more believable that the biggest tool in the room won't put the camera down for five fucking seconds to do anything, you know, helpful.
Like any loving brother, Thomas reads his sister's diary and films himself while doing it.
"Hi, I'm Thomas. I hide my face in shame because nobody likes me."
My main complaint, though, is that nothing really happens. It's like the filmmakers watched Paranormal Activity and thought to themselves, "Hey, we could do that!" Only they forgot to make anything interesting take place. Sure, people argue that PA is boring, but I disagree. I think plenty of fucked up stuff happens, like when Katie gets dragged from the bed. Hell, even the footprints being made on the floor was sweet. Then you have the whole chandelier episode, and Katie sitting outside on the swing, etc. My point is that shit actually happens.
Paranormal Entity (I won't abbreviate it as PE for obvious reasons) takes several cues from PA, but they forgot to use logic, and they sucked at figuring out payoffs for long stretches of boring crap.
The ghost likes to leave riddles lying around that would puzzle the likes of Poirot or Miss Marple. If only this family could load up Google or knew Germanic root words.
In one particularly stupid (and long) scene, Thomas hears his sister call to him in the middle of the night. Naturally, he gets up and leaves his room to find her. Here's where I just about lost my shit. See, whenever something freaky happened in PA, they turned on the god damned lights. That's, like, rule number one. But our beloved Thomas never got that memo.
It's dark. That's probably because it's the middle of the fucking night.
Light switches are too bothersome when you're creeping around the house looking for ghosts.
What's that in the corner? I don't know. ALL THE LIGHTS ARE OFF, DUMBASS.
I was going to take more screen caps, but I figure you get the idea. If you're here, you're pretty smart. Thomas ends up going outside, and when he comes back in, the attic ladder is down. He goes up there and pans the camera around like 80 times before his sister just appears in front of him out of absolutely nowhere. Of course, she's still in her bra and panties. If this movie has anything over PA, it's the T & A factor. I thought Katie was hot, even though she tended to sleep in more than a bra. I mean, hello, a demon-rapist was after her, so she at least kept her pants on.
Not this bitch, though. It's sort of like the "you asked for it" argument, but for demon rape. I don't make the same argument for normal rape.
The other really bad lapse in logic comes when Thomas gets the genius idea to put strings across all the doorways. Then he ties bells to all the strings and waits for them to ring. You know, so he can run over there and presumably sucker punch the invisible demon rapist.
This solution solves absolutely nothing. Thomas has a "special" kind of intellect.
You might be wondering why the bell idea is so pants-on-head retarded. Well, for starters, it was already established that the demon-rapist can walk on the ceiling. Oops.
That's a footprint on the ceiling, dipshit.
In one of the few genuinely disturbing parts in Paranormal Entity, it's revealed that the footprints are in ash. Why ash? Oh, because the ashes of Thomas' father are scattered all over the floor.
I'll admit that's messed up.
All-in-all, though, fuck Paranormal Entity. It tries to be Paranormal Activity, but it fails at doing pretty much everything PA did right. The moral of this story is: If you're going to get raped by a demon, please don't film it and stream it on Netflix.
The bells on strings is a rookie mistake. Thomas should have baited a bear trap with some of his sister's underwear. Problem solved.
ReplyDeleteAnd we probably would have been treated to Thomas sniffing them before he set the trap.
ReplyDeleteHoly crap, I thought I had read this but apparently didn't because I would have remembered all the insanely funny stuff you wrote. I love the whole post but nothing made me laugh harder than the moral at the end there! Hahahahaha:)
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