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DIM ‘DIMENSION’
Ivy George and
Chris J. Murray
star in the latest
“Paranormal
Activity” movie.
FILM REVIEW
ANDREW BARKER
Paranormal
Activity: The
Ghost Dimension
DIRECTOR: Gregory Plotkin
STARRING: Chris J. Murray, Brit Shaw, Ivy George
FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION
BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
THE ACCLAIMED FILM FROM OSCAR ® WINNING DIRECTOR RUBY YANG
“Hong Kong’s 5 Most Essential Films of 2014”
- The Wall Street Journal
So this is the way a franchise
ends. The sixth and allegedly
final installment of the
massively money-minting
found-footage horror series,
“Paranormal Activity: The Ghost
Dimension” offers little more than a
distant, whimpering echo of a film
property that once made such a bang.
Distinguished mostly by the addition of
3D and an unusual distribution window,
the film is scheduled to hit VOD less than
three weeks after leaving cinemas, to the
chagrin of a few theater chains. It will
be interesting to see if the experimental
release strategy pays off in the long
run, and it’s not hard to imagine the
“Paranormal” series living on thanks to
the multiplicity of new digital content
platforms. For all the memorable scares
it manages to cook up, “The Ghost
Dimension” might have actually worked
better as a series of GIFs.
While it does answer some lingering
questions about the franchise’s
overarching mythology, the film spends
most of its running time dully retracing
old steps, introducing yet another
suburban family — father Ryan Fleege
(Chris J. Murray), mother Emily Fleege
(Brit Shaw), and 7-year-old daughter
Leila (Ivy George) — as they prepare
for Christmas in their enormous new
Santa Rosa, Calif., house. Joining them
for a few weeks is Ryan’s brother Mike
(Dan Gill), a commodiously mustached
hipster recovering from a breakup, and
Skylar (Olivia Taylor Dudley), a young
blonde woman in town for some sort of
yoga retreat that allows her to abruptly
disappear from the film for long stretches.
Like all “Paranormal” subjects, the
Fleeges are chronic videographers, and
Ryan gets to flex some new photographic
muscles when he finds a old-school
camcorder stashed in the garage, along
with a collection of family videos. At first,
the camera shows only Rorschach-like
blobs of debris floating through the air,
but it’s not long before everything starts
to go haywire. Young Leila develops a
sudden allergy to Christian iconography
and begins talking to an imaginary
friend; Ryan and Mike pop in the videos
only to discover footage of a strange cult
and two telepathic children; and since
even malevolent demons have a soft spot
for vintage arcade games, the pinball
machine starts turning on by itself.
Without much spark to the jump
scares, the film turns to hoary exorcism
tropes and CGI fantasias, undoing much
of the low-key believability essential to
“Paranormal’s” appeal. Youngster George
makes for a very effective creepy kid,
though her adult counterparts fail to
leave much of an impression. And the
environs are as bland as can be; one
would have to trawl through the deepest
recesses of Romanian art cinema to find
a film with as many static, silent shots of
empty rooms and unfurnished hallways.
“Oscar® winner Ruby Yang
comes home, finds her ‘Voice’”
- Variety
www.myvoicemylifemovie.com
“Critics’ Pick”
- The New York Times
RETURNING TO THEATERS ON OCTOBER 31
LAEMMLE PASADENA PLAYHOUSE . 673 E. COLORADO BLVD., PASADENA,CA 91101
WEEKENDS – OCT 31/ NOV 1; NOV 7/8 and NOV 14/15 11:00 AM MATINEES ONLY
CREDITS: A Paramount
release and presentation
of a Blumhouse, Solana
Films, Room 101 production.
PRODUCED BY Jason Blum,
Oren Peli; EXECUTIVE
PRODUCERS, Steven R•
Molsen, Steven Schneider.
DIRECTED BY Gregory
Plotkin. SCREENPLAY, Jason
Harry Pagan, Andrew
Deutschman, Adam
Rabitel, Gavin Heffernan,
from a story by Brantley
Aufill, Pagan, Deutschman.
CAMERA (COLOR), John
Rutland; EDITOR, Michel
Aller; PRODUCTION DESIGNER,
Nathan Amondson;
COSTUME DESIGNER, Lisa
Lovaas; ART DIRECTOR, Nick
Ralbovsky; SOUND, Walter
Anderson; RE-RECORDING
MIXERS, Onnalee Black, Matt
Waters, Marc Fishman,
Adam Jenkins, Julian Slater;
VISUAL EFFECTS SUPERVISOR,
Eddie Pasquarello; VISUAL
EFFECTS, Industrial Light
and Magic; SPECIAL
EFFECTS COORDINATOR,
Larz Anderson; STUNT
COORDINATORS, James
Armstrong, Dennis
Fitzgerald; ASSISTANT
DIRECTOR, Brian F• Relyea;
CASTING, John McAlary, Terri
Taylor. REVIEWED AT AMC
Century City, Los Angeles,
Oct. 22, 2015. MPAA RATING: R.
RUNNING TIME: 88 MIN.
CAST: Chris J• Murray, Brit
Shaw, Ivy George, Dan Gill,
Olivia Taylor Dudley
112 Final Cut