![]() An earlier scene, in which Julie jumped out at Dennis while wearing a mask, supports the idea that this is setting us up for another fake scare. Up until this point, Kristi has been shown to get up past bedtime to frolic throughout the house. The second the small ghostly figure enters the frame, the presumption is that it's Kristi under the sheet, emulating her babysitter. That this scare happens right on the heels of Lisa giving the camera a false "boo" moment, and that she used the sheet to goof around with the girls, keeps the viewer off-kilter. ![]() The limited range of vision and the methodical pacing creates an unsettling tension as the audience is forced to wait to see what happens next. Instead of providing a wide angle which shows all of the downstairs, the camera's slow panning motion only shows the audience half of the frame at a time. Just as the camera starts its sweep back to the living room, the figure deflates, resulting in a confused Lisa looking at a sheet crumpled on the floor.Ĭoming in at the halfway mark, this scene creates a smart new way of building suspense courtesy of the innovative oscillating camera - one wholly appropriate of the '80s setting. As it shifts back to the kitchen, the ghostly figure is standing right behind Lisa. It pans slowly back to the kitchen, pausing momentarily on Lisa, before panning back again. After multiple rotations, a small figure in a sheet appears in the farthest corner of the frame by the front door. The camera continues to move back and forth between rooms in utter quiet, with Lisa's back facing the living room. The series has delivered no shortage of memorable scares and chilling scenes, but the utter cleverness of an oscillating camera in Paranormal Activity 3 might be the pinnacle of blood-curdling chills. Mythology aside, the Paranormal Activity films showcase what found footage excels at: an ingenuity and effectiveness in scare crafting. With six films released so far and another installment on the way, the franchise about a family haunted by a demonic entity keeps audiences coming back for more. See Shudder's Host for a recent example – or better yet, look to the subgenre's largest and longest-running franchise, the Paranormal Activity series. ![]() ![]() Still, when it's done well, few things evoke terror as well as found footage. – so much so that its overuse means the phrase "found footage" now tends to be met with groans. Thanks to the success of The Blair Witch Project, the found footage approach became a prevalent technique among studios and filmmakers hoping to achieve similar success. That's the central goal of a scary movie, after all. Horror filmmakers use any tools and tricks they can to scare their audience. ![]()
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