Paranormal Activity is Back and Scarier than Ever

Creepy children who can talk to ghosts, alla "The Sixth Sense"? Check.

Home movies that reveal dark seeded family secrets? Check.

A third installment of the extremely low budget yet suprisingly popular "Paranormal Activity" series? Check.

This past weekend the highly anticipated "Paranormal Activity 3" premiered and made quite the scare, pun intended. According to MTV this movie, "broke the box-office record for the biggest fall opening with an estimated $54 million debut, passing "Jackass 3D" to become the highest-grossing September/October opening ever."

Back in 2009 when the first "Paranormal Activity" premiered, it did surprisingly well. On The Scene Blog said, the movie only cost "about $15,000 to make." According to Bloomberg BusinessWeek, the film "had $193.4 million in worldwide ticket sales." And, according to the same website, the second movie in the series,"cost $3 million and took in $177.5 million."

The charm of the film is the  "Blair Witch" style of filming, where it is shot in a series of lower quality videos that give it a home movie feel. It seems so real, that audiences are kept up for hours on end wondering if it could happen to them.

The entire series is based on this one family that has an apparent ghost or in this case demon attached to them. The first movie focuses on a young couple who start to have weird things happen to them in the middle of the night and soon things go horribly wrong when things start breaking and becoming possessed. The second movie is supposed to be set during the same time as the first one. It centers on the young woman's sister and what happens to her. The third movie, however, is more of a prequel, focusing on the girls back in the 80s and what exactly it is that happened to them and caused their adult lives to become so horrific. I definitely recommend seeing the first two before seeing this one, because you will better understand the dynamics of the series better.

Personally, I thought the amount of movies being made about this same family and their demon friends, resembled the amount of movies the "Scream" franchise seems to believe is necessary. Now, don't get me wrong, "Scream" is one of my favorite slasher movies; if not for it's ridiculous serial killer dressed in a mask and black robes, but for the hilarious parody, "Scary Movie", making it even more of an enjoyable movie to watch. I don't think "Scream 4" was necessary, but it was nice to see Neve Campbell and one of my favorite friends, Courtney Cox, reunited to deal with that pesky Ghostface Killer. That being said, it actually had a good twist on the end that made it worth the $11.50 I paid to see it. But, I digress(you get me talking about horror movies, and there is just no stopping me!).

E!'s movie reviews (whom I don't usually make my opinion based off of, because when I think a movie is good they seem to think it is the worst movie on the face of the planet) even had  something nice to say about the movie. E! said, "Set in the late '80s, to explore what exactly happened all those years ago, 3 has the most likeable cast by far, some honest laughs and plenty of those patented Paranormal scares."

I went to go see this movie on Thursday night with four of my friends. Two of us were excited beyond belief to see it, while the others were slighly less than enthused; they hate horror movies, but like good friends, we dragged them anyway. As the third in this series, I was expecting a horrible movie that had a few creepy moments and made a story that is three years old even older. What I got was completely the opposite.

This movie in the "Paranormal Activity" series was, dare I say, the scariest of the three. The first one was thrilling and the second had a few good scares, but this movie, had more screams than I thought possible of a threquel. I think what made it so scary was the fact that children were involved and that there were a few too many references to witchcraft and demons than I'd like to remember(personally, I think there are some things you just shouldn't screw with). Without giving too much away, this movie definitely messes with your mind and makes you believe one thing, when really all along it was something else(Check out the trailer below!).

I'd say, if you want a really good horror movie to see this Halloween season, go check out "Paranormal Activity 3". Even I, a self proclaimed horror movie lover, had a few moments where I was desperately clutching on to my best friend's arm, while trying not to scream like a five year old who just saw a spider in her room.

I loved it and I can't wait to go see it again to try and catch all of the little things I missed, when my eyes were closed and my head was buried in my arm. But, if I had to choose one thing that would make you go see this, I'd say it would have to be the horrible 80s clothing, which in my mind was perhaps the scariest thing about this movie!