2014 Movie Preview: #21 - Paranormal Activity 5

Release date: October 24

Plot summary: Scary things are happening in someone's house and they're capturing it all on video so you can be as freaked out as they are. Is it a ghost? Is it Tobey? Is it Katie Featherston? You'll have to pay money for a ticket and find out!

My take: At this point, this franchise is getting a little long in the tooth and probably should be put out to pasture. However, I don't want to see it go away until we get some answers related to the film's overall mythology. If they jerk audience's around again with this one, I'm calling it quits. But I'm hopeful that with the benefit of taking a year off that they'll have come up with a decent story that not only decently scares us but gives us the answers we've been looking for. Please note that the film I am previewing here is not the one that comes out in January. That one is a cheap spinoff that is merely looking to cash in on the Paranormal Activity name.

RBR: Paranorman

Thanks to the success of Pixar, we are inundated these days with computer animated kids films, so it's refreshing to see someone take a more old school approach to animated films. Using stop-motion technology, Paranorman tells the story of a young boy who has the ability to see and talk to dead spirits, which makes him an outcast in his town. The animation here is superb, but it's the only thing notable about this rather thin tale of acceptance. The film can be rather slow at times and is awfully morose for supposedly being a kids film. I found myself bored or depressed rather than engaged while watching most of it. I give the film credit for getting its message across in a way that is organic to the story and doesn't feel like ham-fisted proselytizing. And yet, I felt no emotional connection to the story or the primary characters. Those who are fans of this style of animation should definitely give this a watch as the film looks great, but from an entertainment perspective the film lacks more body than the zombies it depicts on screen. Rating: *** 1/2