Paranormal Activity 4

Director: Henry Joost, Ariel Schulman (2012)
Starring: Katie Featherston, Kathryn Newton, Matt Shively
Find it: IMDB

At what stage does something stop being Paranormal Activity and become a Regular Occurrence? All the activity has led to this, apparently. To be fair, Paranormal Activity 4 does head in a slightly different direction to the first three films, its threat being of a slightly different nature to which we're used to seeing. Paranormal Activity 4 is more of a spooky child movie than it is a haunted house flick.

But, in the worlds of meme Captain Picard, why the fuck, at this point, are they still recording everything they do? Aside from a little football match at the start of the film, barely any attempt is made to explain why young Alex (Newton) is recording her every move. Never before has the series' gimmick seemed so stretched and aimless.

Creepy kid Robbie (Brady Allen) and his mother move in across the street from tweenage Alex and her family. When his mother is mysteriously taken ill, Robbie comes to stay with the family. Unfortunately, the scary little shit has brought his Invisible Friend with him. Cue things flying around the house, doors slamming shut, people levitating out of beds and the whole family flying up and down stairs in hilarious Paranormal Activity style. I haven't been scared by a Paranormal Activity since the first one, but this fourth instalment isn't even remotely worrying.

There are some new ideas which work well though, particularly those which employ an Xbox's Motion Capture facilities to catch a glimpse of the demons which stalk Alex's home and the children in it. With several laptops and an Xbox all switched on at once, this family's reliance on standby mode is the reason we have global warming, people. Switch your shit off! Unfortunately, most everything else is laugh out loud funny. Alex levitating out of her bed raises a smile while the family's repeatedly being flung around the house like rag dolls is just hilarious. My favourite part of the Paranormal Activity films is the bit in which unseen forces drag the protagonists around the place; Paranormal Acivity 4 is like a spooky version of You've Been Framed in that respect.  

It's all a bit of a non-event, culminating in a reasonably interesting cliffhanger which probably won't be followed up on in the inevitable sequel. But oh, as long as they have people falling up and down the stairs some more, I'm on board for that.

Stitches

Director: Conor McMahon (2012)
Starring: Ross Noble, Tommy Knight, Gemma Leah-Devereux
Find it: IMDB

Those who suffer from caulrophobia but love horror movies could do worse than Conor McMahon's Stitches - after all, whoever could be scared of cuddly Ross Noble? The stand-up comedian and serial QI gobshite tries his hand at horror movie villainy in this, an odd Irish cross between A Nightmare on Elm Street, IT and The Inbetweeners.

While attending a friend's birthday party, a gang of bastardly children accidentally murder  sweary clown-for-hire Richard 'Stitches' Grindle (Noble). Years later, at Tom's (Knight) sixteenth birthday party, Stitches is resurrected and out for revenge. Beyond its strange choice in lead actor, Stitches is an old-school slasher movie in the mold of A Nightmare on Elm Street (if you thought Freddy's one-liners were bad, just you wait until you hear one of these beauties) or Maniac Cop. His victims may be younger than we're used to, but Stitches pulls no punches in his bloody vengeance. Heads are kicked off, faces impaled, bollocks pulled off, intestines unravelled and that's not even the half of it. There's a shocking amount of gore in Stitches - very much earning the film its 18 rating.

Unfortunately, like everything else that's not James Bond, Sinister or Paranormal Activity 4, Stitches was utterly shafted upon its UK cinema release. I found myself huddled up in a completely empty screen at a shitty cinema in the middle of nowhere at 9:20 at night, so sparse were showings of the film. That's a shame, because Stitches is one of the few horror movies of 2012 that I wasn't disappointed by. Mind, I am a sucker for seeing horrible children get their deserving heads kicked off by zombie clowns.

This is not going to be everyone's cup of tea. Black as the comedy might be, the film is played entirely for laughs. The over the top gore makes it impossible to take seriously. Unless you have, maybe, very severe fear of clowns, Stitches isn't remotely scary. Like Noble's stand-up routines and panel show rants, the film does ramble on a bit towards the end, the youths are exceptionally horrible and the acting a bit duff. Noble is fantastic as Stitches, but alas, the hook-handed shadow of Psychoville's Mister Jelly looms large over the film. Were it not for the existence of Reece Shearsmith's fabulous creation, Stitches would be a great creation. As it is, he's merely very good.

A comedy horror with guts, gusto and plenty of grue, Stitches truly is a noble effort.