Okay, first off, can we please just start off this review by discussing how fucking ridiculous this movie’s title is? “Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension.” Just look at that. Hey, here’s a challenge. Go around to maybe 5 friends and say that title to their face, and wait for them to burst into laughter. Chances are, it won’t be long before that happens. Never mind the fact that some 6 years ago, those first two words seemed like the small, sad little ray of hope in a genre littered by Saw movies and PG-13 rated jumpfests. Nowadays, they’re a fucking joke. They’re the words you associate with a YouTube video of 5 hyperactive teenagers running into some abandoned location and jumping out at each other to simulate a ghost haunting. They’re the words you use when you feel a random bowel movement you didn’t see coming. Fuck, they’re the fucking words you use to describe a movie series whose relevance is just a mere blip on the radar by this point! Honestly, when was the last fucking time anyone even gave two shits about a movie with those words in the title? 2011, maybe? It was becoming clear at that point that the series’ expiry date was fast approaching, and from there on, you may as well have been paying to have seen the movie you did two years ago.
No, but seriously, that title. The previous movie was called “The Marked Ones“. Honestly, are they just giving the movies fancy titles now because they’re scared of numbering them? I mean, “Paranormal Activity 6” sure sounds ridiculous but nowhere near as ridiculous as these fancy subtitles. Fuck me, I’ve gotten a paragraph and a fifth into this review talking about a movie title. Well, I guess now’s the perfect time to mention it’s only fitting that this movie gets a fucking ridiculous title, because honestly, this movie is just shit. There’s no nice way of putting it. It’s absolute shit. There’s absolutely nothing redeeming about it. I mean, you probably know it’s going to be bad anyways, but even still, it’s pure trash in every sense of the word. This movie made me want to trash my bedroom. This isn’t the first time that a movie has inspired such rage, but it’s no less frustrating that this movie is that bad. As a movie, it fails. As a horror movie, it fails. Hell, even as a motherfucking Paranormal Activity movie, it fails. As an ending, it fails. Yeah. It’s that bad. It has fucking fail written all over it. Honestly, I’m amazed this movie even has some form of existence on this earth. It may seem like I’m exaggerating, and boy, do I ever wish I was. But nope, this movie has absolutely redeeming qualities and almost makes Fantastic Four look like a cinematic masterpiece. Almost.
“Help! The contractual obligation void is coming for me!”
In all honesty, do I even need to get into my obligatory paragraph or two summarizing this movie’s story? I mean, this is the fucking 6th film in the franchise. By this point, we all know the story. We go to some family who lives in California. They have a pretty nice house. The dad has some perverse obsession with filming everything in existence. Said family has some idiot relative or friend whose only purpose is to inject some of the only thing even vaguely resembling humour into the film. Said family has some spooky doin’s abound in the house. One or more family members is an asshole. Something happens that pushes them over the edge. Family sets up some cameras around the place in hopes of capturing something. First night, next to dick happens. Second and third nights, the door will swing maybe an inch or a chair moves. Fourth or fifth night, the kid talks to some offscreen ghost. The mom or dad continues to be an asshole. Then Finally shit gets more intense. Then finally something pushes mom or dad over the edge. Then in the last 10 minutes shit hits the fan and the last shot is the camera hitting the ground and everyone dying. The end. Seriously, that’s it. So, is anything different about this movie? Oh, they have some camera with “six camera tubes” or whatever so that it can capture all kinds of shit. That’s right, now we get to “See” the activity or whatever. What does the “activity” look like? Black CG shit. Nothing else. And it disappears whenever someone comes into contact with it. Oh, and it looks like a 1993 computer game.
Yep, that’s right, a total of ONE new thing is added to this movie. And it’s something that serves only to completely ignore what made the first three movies so great. And that aside, nothing else is redeeming about this movie at all. Every scene in this film, if it isn’t cringe-worthy, it’s downright embarrassing. Nothing in the previous movies is explained at all, and nothing in this movie is explained either. There’s a scene that happens near the middle of the film where the parents hear some creepy drone coming from the daughter’s room and they go to the room, and she’s playing the recorder to the window. Then she pukes up black shit all over the curtain. Is this scene explained? No. There’s a scene where the daughter wakes up in the middle of the night and starts tearing pages from her mum’s bible out from the binding, and throws them in the fireplace. And then she turns the gas on and her mum stops her and takes her to bed. Is this explained? No. There’s a running gag where a VHS tape of Kristy from third movie keeps talking to the dad. Is this explained? It’s not just that, though; in true PA fashion, the characters are dumber than a bucket of rocks. I mean, there’s these fucking pagan symbols that appear on the wall above the daughter’s bed and for fucks’ sakes, THEY DON’T EVEN FUCKING TRY TO CLEAN THEM OFF!!! And they only serve the purpose to show you the admittedly rather cool effect shown in the screencap at the top of this page.
All your tube are belong to us.
Are there any scares in this movie at all? Nope. None. Absolutely nothing is scary about this pile of garbage. I didn’t once jump. I didn’t once get creeped out. I watched it all alone in the dark, and nothing resembling scares or creepiness happened. I mean, I didn’t expect to actually be scared as, well, it’s fucking 2015 and these movies aren’t effective any more, nor have they been in years. And that should say something about The Ghost Dimension. There are no characters. They’re just assholes who fucking film things. There’s absolutely no fucking scares or story. I swear to god, I’ve found episodes of Vanderpump Rules scarier than this pile of bullshit. According to the producers, this is to be the last Paranormal movie, and I fucking hope so. This series realistically didn’t need any sequels, but for the sake of argument, I’ll go and say 3 was enough. No more. Please. End the bullshit here and now, This has gone on for more than long enough. It’s about time the madness ended.
Yeah, fuck you too.
Summary
The Ghost Dimension is the much needed end of a franchise that should have ended a long time ago, and not even a good one.