Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension (2015) (New Unrated Cut) (Blu-ray/DVD Review)

Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension (2015) (New Unrated Cut) (Blu-ray/DVD Review)
Directed By: Gregory Plotkin
Starring: Chris J. Murray, Brit Shaw, Ivy George
Rated: UR and R/Region A/1:78/1080p/Number of Discs 2
Available from Paramount Pictures

The Ghost Dimension, follows a new family, The Fleeges – father Ryan (Chris J. Murray), mother Emily (Brit Shaw) and their young daughter Leila (Ivy George) – Who move into a house and discover a video camera and a box of tapes in the garage. When they look through the camera’s lens, they begin to see the paranormal activity happening around them – including the re-emergence of young Kristi and Katie.

I like to consider myself one of the biggest supporters you’ll find out there for Paranormal Activity. I remember when the first one came out and I really dug it, because it came during a time when the horror world really needed something different and the found footage film was a new concept again back then. Now fast forward to the current state of horror, where we are now six deep into the Paranormal Activity series (Seven counting the Japanese one) and we get a different found footage film about every other week in horror. Needless to say that sparkle the franchise once had isn’t nearly as bright now as it was. The latest entry, The Ghost Dimension, is supposed to be the last of the series, now stop me if you’ve heard that before. I kinda hope it is, because this storyline is so confusing and hard to follow at this point, nothing short of a whole new plot for the next one will do. Still, this one tries it’s very best to tie-up every loose-end this series has, as we once again see a group of people move into this same house and have the same trouble as everyone else, now only they can see Tobi because they are using a camera from around the time of part 3 and it picks him up. Insert the evil in the house trying to recruit the daughter, insert a priest to try to help, and toss in a whole bunch of jump-scares and you have a new flavor of the same brand we’ve been getting. If Paranormal Activity was Sprite, well I would say this is Sprite Remix. Still not on a level of the first one, maybe two, but way ahead of the Sprite ZERO’s of the franchise we’ve been getting with 3, 4, and in some degrees, The Marked Ones. Basically, it isn’t bad per say, it just still isn’t THAT good either.

This movie kicks things off a bit slow, but not as slow as these movies tend to start off. I guess we can be thankful that our new people about to get haunted at least get smarten up a bit early on allowing things to not drag as much. Of course one line about the demon attaching to a person not a place means they can’t be hated on by reviewers for simply not leaving the house. I guess outside the normal Paranormal Activity stuff you could compare this in ways to Poltergeist, only with more doom, gloom, jumps, and people using a lot more foul language. I admit there are some scary things we see, but it does depend a bit too much on loud random noises and jumps rather than general horror. That worked way back when the first one came out, but now after the million copycats we’ve seen, even the original innovator of this type of flick can at times come across as a second string copy of its self at times. I still found myself interested enough and I did at least like the idea of trying to make sense of everything we’ve seen between the original and The Ghost Dimension, but you still feel like for a finale it does end a bit weak. I dunno, I just feel like after a bunch of movies that have more or less ended the same way, I’d have expected at least a little something that felt different by the time these credits rolled and I’m not sure anyone will legit be happy with what we got. I think a better ending, be it by no means perfect either, was left on the cutting room floor with the alternate ending in the extras. It might have made less sense, but after all we’ve seen that ending would have at least tried to wrap things up on a somewhat different note. Listen, if you’ve had a soft spot for these movies up until now, you’ll probably have a soft spot for this one. I do and I didn’t hate it. If you aren’t really into Paranormal Activity in general, then I don’t see anything this time to make you change your opinion either.

Extras

– Theatrical Version: 1:28:03 total runtime
– Extended Version: 1:37:22 total runtime
– Extended Version with Alternate Ending: 1:35:09 total runtime
– “Lost Footage”

Quality of Transfer: 88%