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Paranormal Activity 3
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray B - United Kingdom - Paramount Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Samuel Scott (5th January 2014). |
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The Film
 ***This is an A/V and extras review only. For reviews on the movie from various critics, we recommend visiting HERE.*** It runs in the family. Paranormal Activity 3 takes you back to where it all began and the activity is more intense than ever. The cameras are on and recording the chilling moments when evil begins to terrorise young sisters Katie and Kristie for the first time. Brace yourself for the horror phenomenon that delivers "heart-exploding scares" so frightening that "the last 15 minutes will mess you up for live".
Video
Paramount Home Entertainment have released the third movie in the "Paranormal Activity" series onto Blu-ray in the United Kingdom using an aspect ratio of 1.78:1. The transfer is 1080p, and it uses an AVC MPEG-4 codec. Like the previous movies, it is a 'found footage' style movie, so you should not expect a crystal clear transfer. Although this entry into the series takes place during the 1980s, and the found footage is from an 80s camcorder, the filmmakers have decided to not give us 80s VHS quality material, but have still used some stylish effects to give the transfer a camcorder like quality. In the opening footage, which takes place during present day, the transfer is exceptional. Blacks are deep, details are strong, and there is no obvious damage. The rest of the movie still shows good detail, but black levels are not quite as good, and look a little washed out. Saturation levels are inconsistent, with some scenes looking overwhelmingly undersaturated, and there is the odd scratch, dirt and flicker, but the majority of this is obviously intentional. The various blues and blacks do get a little blocky on occasion, but it never becomes too much of an issue. The disc is region free, and the feature runs 93:59 if you watch the "Director's" cut, or 84:08 if you watch the "Theatrical" cut.
Audio
There are several tracks to choose from on this release: - English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 - French Dolby Digital 5.1 - German Dolby Digital 5.1 - Italian Dolby Digital 5.1 - Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 - English Audio Descriptive Dolby Digital 5.1 For obvious reasons, I opted for the English DTS-HD Master Audio track which was slightly more eventful than that found on Paramount's release of Paranormal Activity 2. This was mainly due to a couple of earthquake scenes, which led to some very good low rumblings that increased in velocity as the earthquake continued. As per previous movies, the surrounds are not really utilised too much apart from when it's time for a jump scare, but there are some occasional environmental sounds such as static from the camera. One of the best effects can be found when we are peering through the camcorder as it sits on a modified fan though, especially the whirring mechanics of the struggling fan. As should be expected for such a recent movie, there was no damage found such as scratches or dropouts. I also detected no background hiss. Optional subtitles can be found in Danish, Dutch, English, English HoH, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Spanish and Swedish.
Extras
The extras are barely worth mentioning here. First we get a scare montage lasting 2:15, which is just a series of jump scares, and secondly we get a 56 second commercial for Dennis' wedding video business. Yawn.
Overall
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