Horror Movie Review: Paranormal Activity 4 (2012)

The 4th Paranormal Activity is a direct sequel to Paranormal Activity 2 after the prequel that was the third movie. It follows the exact same formula set out so far but with even more diminishing results. This was a franchise that had run out of steam long before it even got to this one.

You can read our review of the all the other Paranormal Activity movies below:

2007 – Paranormal Activity
2010 – Paranormal Activity 2
2011 – Paranormal Activity 3

2014 – Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones
2015 – Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension

The movie opens showing the events that occurred at the end of the second. Katie (Katie Featherston), possessed by a demon arrives at her sister’s house, kills her & her husband & disappears with their young child, Hunter.

5 years later & focus is shifted to the Nelson family. The teenage girl, Alex (Kathryn Newton) is our camera-woman for large parts of the movie & along with her parents & younger brother lives a seemingly happy life.

Alex notices a new family moving in across the road & runs into a young boy who lives there by the name of Robbie (Brady Allen). He’s a quiet kid but quickly develops a friendly relationship with the youngest member of the Nelson family, Wyatt (Aiden Lovekamp). When Robbie’s mother is taken ill, the Nelson family agree to take him in while she is in hospital.

This is a pretty odd development that happens far too quickly & without us (as the viewer) ever seeing Robbie’s mother. It makes the supposed surprise twist very predictable.

‘The kid’s faces reflect mine while watching this dross’.

So, Robbie moves in with the Nelsons but doesn’t come alone. Soon unusual events, odd noises & jump scares are occurring in every other scene. Have you seen a Paranormal Activity movie? Then you’ve seen everything this 4th movie has to offer. There are zero fresh ideas, zero originality, it’s boring & worst of all it is pointless.

As furthering the overall plot goes they could have easily tacked on a few extra minutes at the end of Paranormal Activity 2 & that would have sufficed.

Whereas you could at least claim to know them even if you didn’t care about the characters from the first 3 movies, these are forgettable fodder for a demon that really doesn’t make a whole lot of sense anymore. At this stage, why on earth does it still go through the pointless procedure of spooky noises, opening doors etc. This isn’t a new demon, it came with Robbie!

Ultimately, it’s Robbie who is the main attraction of this film but again, Paranormal Activity already focused on kids! The spooky/weird shenanigans he does were literally being done one movie before with two kids instead!

If you haven’t worked out the ‘twist’ within the first few minutes, it becomes painfully obvious halfway through. You might hope that it would at least result in a frantic & exciting finale but it doesn’t. Instead it does exactly the same thing we’ve seen in the previous movies!

Simply put, Paranormal Activity is an incredibly lazy rehash of the series so far. A pointless watch that can be easily skipped over by fans of the series.