Paranormal Activity 4: Same old scares

The low-budget, quickly produced and highly successful Paranormal Activity franchise is back with another instalment, right in time for Halloween. It delivers little new, but provides enough scares to satisfy most of its core audience.

This time, the film is told mainly from the viewpoints of two teenagers, who do a fine job of anchoring the film. The precocious Alex (Kathryn Newton) and her guy friend Ben (Matt Shively) find the boy next door, Robbie (Brady Allen), rather odd. After Robbie's mum injures herself in an accident, Robbie moves into Alex's house and becomes best friends with Alex's brother Wyatt (Aiden Lovekamp). Things start going bump in the night, as Robbie appears to have brought an invisible friend with him into the house.

The movie bears many of the hallmarks of the first three.

Once again, there are plenty of slamming doors, creepy thumps, and a low rumble that pervades the soundtrack to indicate the presence of strange forces. The ending also involves one of the characters running around with a camera on the low-light setting. A sizable number of cheap jump shocks, as well as a few fake-outs, are strewn throughout the film - after all, audiences familiar with the franchise and other found-footage films expect to see something appear behind every closing door.