Trailer Tracking: ‘Drive,’ ‘Contagion,’ ‘Paranormal Activity 3,’ ‘Haywire’

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Movie: “Paranormal Activity 3”

Best Parts of the Trailer: Best use of bathroom “Bloody Mary” since Candyman stole her act

Worst Parts of the Trailer: The shadow in the corner after “Bloody Mary” wasn’t nearly as freaky as some of the stuff in the earlier “Paranormal” trailers; So, how did they forget that this major event happened twenty years ago?; Everybody loves a prequel, right? RIGHT?

Our Take: The original “Paranormal Activity” is a prime example of a high-concept indie done right. It was purported to be the found video footage of a haunted house story, and Oren Peli and his fellow filmmakers did an excellent job of taking that concept and delivering the hell out of it. Following “Paranormal 1”, the question was – after the high concept, what comes next? “Paranormal 2” tried to up the ante by creating a long family history surrounding the haunting and adding a baby to the mix – we know more than one person who avoided “PA2” because they didn’t want to see a ghost mess with a kid in a crib – and it was semi-successful. It varied the theme a bit, but it was hard to ignore that it was essentially more of the same. Now comes “Paranormal Activity 3” and, once again, they have to vary up the formula just enough to keep it interesting, while keeping everything that people dug about the first one. So, how are they planning on doing it? One word – prequel. And, oh, what a loaded word that is.

Because, c’mon, prequels are almost never, ever good. (Aside from “X-Men: First Class” and “Godfather: Part 2”, their track record is pretty awful.) Particularly since, in the “Paranormal Activity” world, you now have to explain, “well, why didn’t the events of ‘PA3’ get mentioned in ‘PA1’ and ‘PA2’? Were they forgotten? Were they inconsequential?” Two of the best tricks of “PA2” were the realization that the documentary was unfolding parallel to the first one, allowing Katie from “PA1” to be a major supporting character, and that the demon, apparently, wanted the family’s first born son, i.e. Hunter.

So, with that in mind, what’s left to show in that family saga for “PA3”? What can we learn from Katie and Kristi: The Early Years? What’s left to show? The demon hassling them? The demon biding time until he could get his hands on a male child? This is going to be the big challenge in terms of promotion for “PA3”, and this trailer just doesn’t rise to the challenge. It has one great moment – the two little girls playing “Bloody Mary” in the bathroom, but the darkness and the game itself is MUCH better than the reveal at the end, where we see a shadowy figure lurking in the corner. It’s not much of a shock and one has to hope that it isn’t the best “PA3” has to offer.

And while we really dig the idea of directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman being called in to helm “Paranormal Activity 3” – they delivered last year’s very cool “can you tell what’s real or not” documentary “Catfish” – we can’t help but remember what happened when Joe Berlinger, director of one of the best documentaries we’ve ever seen, “Paradise Lost”, was handed the keys to the sequel to “Paranormal Activity”-predecessor, “The Blair Witch Project”. The result: one of the worst horror sequels of all time.

TRAILER OUTLOOK: More of the same. This prequel, found-footage, horror follow-up has some big handicaps working against it.