Episode 8 - Paranormal Activity 3 (2011)

Join us as we rewind back to 1988, this prequel recounts the childhood traumas of young sisters Kaite & Kristie. Kristie has an imaginary friend, while mom Julie and stepfather Dennis hear noises in the night.

Transcript

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Hey, what's up, everybody? How are you? What have you been up to? How was your weekend? Did you manage to watch anything scary? And if so, what was it? As for me, I finally checked up and told them. And is it just me or did the movie seem like it is all over the place? Regardless of that, I see why I got the reviews that it did because even though it was slightly entertaining, it's gonna be a moment. Also getting up to a 10 nightmare from Richmond next Saturday. Chichen Chong, Danny Lloyd from the Shining, James Dude Courtney, Brett Wagner, Derek Mears, Alyssa Sutherland, Jackson Robert Scott, Quinn Lord, Alex Vinson, Christina Lees, and so many more will be there. I'll tell you how it was on next week's um episode. Before we get started, let's jump into your weekly horror updates. This week in horror features, so Gourney Weaver made an appearance at New York Comic Con where she told the crowd alien producer Walter Hill is a very good friend of hers, and he wrote a 50-page uh, I guess, outline of where Ripley would be in the Alien universe. She called it quite extraordinary. She doesn't know if it's going to happen, but she's had a meeting with Fox Disney. She's never felt the need to reprise the role. The alien franchise, however, is in good hands at the moment with a sequel to Fede Alvarez's Alien Romulus is in development, even though he won't be returning to Direct. However, um Alien Earth just wrapped up its first season, so we're currently waiting to find out if it'll be renewed. I think that for the Alien franchise is good so far, but we also have no idea of where or what David is up to. Because if you remember, at the end of Alien Covenant, before before it ended, Daniels was about to enter Stasis, and then she realized that Walter isn't Walter, it's actually David, and her and Tennessee are still alive out there somewhere in the universe. So, what about that story? Are we gonna be able to wrap that up or like if they're just gonna leave it be? But nonetheless, I'll keep you posted as info is released. The Curse of La La Laurona, which I'm I'm sorry if I'm not saying it right, I don't know how to say it, but anyway, a sequel is under underway and it's titled The Revenge of La Lorona. There's been debates on if it's part of the conjuring universe or not, so I'm not too sure about that. The story sees the return of the vengeful spirit, forcing a fractured family to confront their past and join forces with their estranged grandfather to battle ancient evils and to stop the weeping woman before she claims their children forever. Jason Blum announced last night, same place at the New York Comic-Con, that Megan Fox has also joined the sequel. Five Nights at Freddy 2 is one of the most anticipated horror films left for this year, and it's actually set to release December 5th on 2020, well 2025, obviously, duh. Anyway, that wraps up this week in the horror segment. So let's move on to something else. Welcome back to Chills Thrills and a podcast, our horror community podcast where we review, discuss, and analyze all things horror. This week's episode, we'll be going back in time to visit Katie and Christy as children in this third installment of the Paranormal Activity series, and this one serves as a prequel. This is directed by Henry Jost and Ariel Schulman, and it's set 18 years prior to the events of the first two films. This also happens to be their very first horror film, having worked together on a project titled Catfish. Let's get into let's talk production, reception, and some side notes. Principal photography began on June 6, 2011, and ended on August 5th. At the time during production, the film was under the name Sports Camp. Jason Blum, Oren Pelley, and Steven Snyder were attached to produce, along with Akiva Goldsman serving as executive producer. Christopher Landon wrote the script. Once again, using social media strategy, after the success of the first two films, Paranormal Activity 3 created the Tweet Your Scream campaign on Twitter in preparation for the release, as well as the Paranormal Activity 3 Demon Summoner app. The film performed even better than its predecessors, grossing 8 million from midnight showings, setting yet another record for a horror film. Its total Friday gross was an estimated $26.2 million, which was the best opening day gross for a 2011 film since Harry Potter and the Deathly Holldos Part 2. Bringing its total to $52.6 million, it set a new record for the franchise surpassing Paranormal Activity 2's $40.6 million. At the time of its release, it also set a new opening weekend recommend record for films released in the month of October, as well as the fall season, later surpassed by Gravity in 2013 with the weekend gross of 55.8 million. Paranormal Activity 3 grossed 104 million 28,807 in the United States and Canada, along with 101 million in other countries, bringing the worldwide total to 205,703,818, making it the highest-grossing film in the Paranormal Activity series to date. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 67% based on reviews from 123 critics with an average rating of 6.1 out of 10. The website's consensus is while the jolts and thrills are undeniably subject to the diminishing returns that plague most horror sequels, Paranormal Activity 3 is a surprisingly spang-tingling treat. Metacritic gives the film a weighted average score of 59 out of 100 based on reviews from 25 critics indicating mixed or average reviews. Cinema Score Polls reported that the average grade moviegoers gave the film was a C on an A plus to F scale. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times gave the film a single star out of four, stating that the appeal has worn threadbare but predicted that the film would farewell at the box office nevertheless. The release date for Paranormal Activity 3 was announced just a few weeks after the release of Paranormal Activity 2. Despite the EUNIVES camera being a 1980s camcorder, the decision was made to shoot an HD rather than project actual VHS quality in a movie theater. For shots in which the camera is visible, a small HD camera was hidden inside a larger camcorder exterior. The house they shot in was located in Northridge, California, and didn't need much work at the house because it hadn't been renovated since the 80s, so it already had the right look. The oscillating camera technique was inspired by the movie Rosemary's Baby. There's a symbol shown several times in this movie, and it is synonymous with the keys of Solomon dating back to the Middle Ages. The trailers had unused footage, and a significant amount of footage shown in the trailers and the TV spots did not make it into the final film, which upset a lot of people at the time. The production team had enough extra footage to have created two different versions of the movie. During the initial release, the directors hinted at a hidden scene, but I won't go into detail with that until the end of this episode. So stick around and you'll find out. My first impression was this movie is arguably the best in the franchise. Um, a lot of fans of the series have also said the same thing. One thing I will say is that they probably should have ended it after this one, but when we wrap up this series, I'll circle back to it. There's something about, to me, at least little kids and imaginary friends, to it like it makes you wonder or question that if your child has an imaginary friend, is it really an imaginary friend or is it something else? Nonetheless, I will say Paranormal Activity 3 is definitely in my top 10 all-time favorite horror movies. With that being said, I think it's time to issue you your spoiler warning. If you have not seen this film, this is where you pause this episode and go check that out, and then you can come back here and join us for the discussion. Paranormal Activity 3 is kind of reliant on having seen the first two films. So if you're set and ready, we have a movie to unpack, so let's get into it. Paranormal Activity 3 opens up with Daniel Ray saying, You'll be spending a lot of time in here. This is going to be your room. As the camera is pointing down facing a plastic covered carpet and crib, Daniel shows shows us a paint tray with the color blue. It's more like a baby blue or sky blue. He asks what color that is, and a woman answers, Jamaica Bay Blue. The woman's voice, however, is very recognizable. So when the camera moves up, we see that it's Christy, a very pregnant Christy, and they're prepping Hunter's room as they wait for his arrival, or should I say, birth. Christy says, There's your dad who's playing with his new toy instead of helping me paint. Daniel apologizes, responding that he can help. A text appears, Carlsbad, California, March 2005. So we know this is a year and a few months before the events of paranormal activity too. Daniel jokes that if he wasn't filming, he'd help. So Christy tells him to go get the other ladder, but then the doorbell rings, so Daniel asks, Who's that? Christy answers that it's her sister, and she's there to check out the nursery. Katie walks in telling Daniel that it's gorgeous. She loves the blue, she's glad that he went with that because it's much better than green. Then asks Christy how she's feeling with a warm hug. Christy responds that she's doing good and the baby's doing good as well. He's kicking and it feels like he's swimming around. Daniel and Christy have a debate on the baby's name, with Daniel saying that it's Hunter, but Christy prefers Tyler. Katie chimes in saying that she likes both and doesn't want to choose. However, she lightens the mood, telling them that in preparation for the big move, she has a couple of boxes in her car that she would like to throw in their basement. Both Katie and Christy look at Daniel smiling, awaiting his answer. Shortly after, we see Daniel carrying the last box as Katie tells him it's the last box full of VHS tapes. Daniel asks Katie if she's a little nervous, but she answers no, she's excited. She spends all of her time at Mika's anyway. So at least we have a little more context as to when they started living together, so it's only been about a year and a few months. Christy opens the box and we see that it's old VHS tapes and Daniel calls it old school. Christy asks if they have a VHR, but Daniel isn't sure. Christy tells Katie that she didn't know that she had that much stuff, but Katie responds that somehow she ended up with it after Grandma Lois died. She hasn't gone through it. Christy asks, How come she got it? And Katie doesn't know but tells her that she can have it, so Christy says nobody ever gives her anything. Daniel jokingly asks her who's going to get the top bunk. Going through the box of tapes, Daniel tells them that they can get a VCR for free. Many of the tapes have Katie's name and the year 1988 on them, but Katie doesn't remember that time at all. Daniel makes a joke that they didn't go beta and he pulls out a tape that says Katie 1988. We cut to the next scene, and the footage we're seeing now is the footage from the break-in of Daniel and Christy's house from Paranormal Activity 2. So when they go check the basement, Daniel points out that he doesn't see the box of tapes Christy brought over, and it looks like that's the only thing that's missing. It never occurred to me from watching um the second one, even up to now, there if there were no signs of forced entry, why did they never question that? How was the house broken into in the first place? They had they never elaborated on any of it. So, like, was the door left unlocked, or maybe a window, or simply did the entity do it? We saw the entity make the cabinets and the drawers explode in the second paranormal activity, so it's very possible that that might be the scenario, but we'll never know. In the next scene, we begin seeing footage from September 1988 in Santa Rosa, California. We see a woman in the kitchen, and a man says, The mother of the birthday girl, my girlfriend, and as she's making chocolate chocolate rainbow cake, with him saying that it's a good-looking cake, calling the cake beautiful, followed by calling her beautiful, adding that he doesn't know how she does it. This woman is Julie, played by Lauren Bittner. She is the mother of Katie and Christy. Now carrying the cake outside as everyone sings happy birthday to Katie, played by Chloe Segeneri, she blows out the candles in everybody's chairs. Continuing to film, the man recording Katie saying, There's the birthday girl, and she looks pretty unhappy at that time. Something's going on, and then he switches over to a younger girl saying, We got the young one, and she appears to be talking even though there's no one around her. The man tells Julie to go get Christy, so she brings her over to join the party, and the man tells Christy to say hi. So Katie grabs her hand and starts waving with it, with the man saying that she's a little shy and that it's cute, but they love each other. We are now introduced to Grandma Lois, played by Hallie Foote, as she wishes Katie a happy, happy birthday. She then recalls the day that she was born. She held her in her arms and she made her laugh and cry at the same time. We finally meet the man behind the camera, and this is Dennis, played by Chris Smith. He tells Lois that she's holding a serious piece of equipment, so be careful. Lois responds by asking, How does he shoot weddings with this thing? Because it must hurt his back. He explains that it's something you have to work certain parts of your arm with. He continues saying that he's only been there a few months, but thanks her for welcoming him into the family. So here's our plot device for this one. The camera is involved because Dennis is a videographer. Mika's plot device was him trying to capture whatever was happening with him and Katie and their home, so that's why he had a camera. Daniel's plot device was the break-in, so that's that explains why he had a camera. Every paranormal activity movie has a plot device to justify why there's a camera. Anyway, Dennis continues by telling her that he loves her so much and he wraps it up with a happy birthday. And as he's saying that, Lois tells him that her shoulder is starting to hurt, so he needs to take the camera. In the next scene, continuing with the party, we see a blindfolded Katie who is swinging at a pinata. Later on, or maybe the next day, I don't know, it's not clear, but at the table, Katie and Christy and Julie are sitting while the girls are eating cereal. So I would assume that it's breakfast, but then again, I eat cereal at the most random time, so who knows? Dennis approaches the table asking to see Christy's tooth full throttle because it's coming out today. Christy asks if it's okay to push it, but Julie tells her no not to push it. Christy shows us the tooth, which is barely hanging on. The kid who plays Christy showed up to the set that day with um an actual loose tooth, so they had decided to include it in the film. Julie sits Christy on the counter to get a better look at the tooth, telling Christy that it's ready. Christy tells her that she's going to get a new job, but as a dentist. Julie thanks her, followed by asking if she thinks she's good, and Christy nods yes. Julie tells her to wrap the tooth in tissue and put it in her pocket and bring it home for the tooth fairy. In the next scene, Christy is eating yogurt while Dennis asks why she needs uh another bowl. So Christy responds that he wants to eat. Katie interrupts by telling Christy that Toby isn't real. Now, our entity finally has a name and it's Toby. That's why I said this goes back to what I said that if your child has an imaginary friend, is it really imaginary or is it something else? I never gave it much thought until this movie, but I also don't recall my children have imaginary friends. Some kids do have them and some don't have them. So I guess it really revolves around like the child itself. Christy responds to Katie by telling her that he is real. Out in the driveway, Dennis proclaims that today is the big day, asking, What's today? And Christy answers that it's picture day. Julie starts taking pictures, but when she takes a picture of Katie, it should look very familiar to you. Um this is this is the exact outfit she was wearing like twice now. The picture Julie just took is the very picture that we saw in the first two films. It's the picture that Daniel burned, which is also the same one that Mika found in the attic. So now we know the origins of this picture. Moving on, the final picture they take is a family picture as Danny sets the timer. Dennis sets the timer and runs to stand with them for the shot. In the next scene, we're seeing random wedding pictures as Dennis is working on a wedding project that he shot because remember, he's a wedding videographer. Dennis hears a door slam, so he calls out for Julie, and when she doesn't answer, he walks through the house to search for her. Entering their bedroom, he hears a faint noise behind him, so he directs his attention there, and it leads him up to the girls' room where he finds uh Teddy Ruxpin. Teddy Ruxpin was a children's toy from the mid-80s, so the eyes and the mouth moved as he would tell stories like there's a uh a cassette, um uh it's like a cassette player, it's built into his back, so it came with like different storytelling uh, I guess, tapes itself that you would put in the back of uh Teddy Ruxpin. And I would know my cousin had one. I never had one, but he had one. Anyway, um Dennis picks it up asking him if he fell down before turning it off, and then he hears another noise behind him and he notices a trapdoor in the corner that has now opened. Dennis approaches the trapdoor and takes a look around, but once he turns around, Christy is standing right there. She asks him what he's doing, and Dennis answers that he was just looking around and then asks if they just got home. She answers, yeah, that they had just got home. It was Girls' Day, and he asks her how it was and was it fun, to which she answers that it was great. He tells her that she snuck up on him and she scared him, and they both just laugh about it. Later that night we see Julie and Dennis sitting in bed as Julie tells him not to film this and he questions why not, and she whispers that it's illegal, and we see that she's smoking weed and he just laughs at her. He asks that they haven't even started smoking and she's already paranoid. She tells him, What if her kids find her? She's a mother, followed by seriously Dennis. Dennis jokingly mocks her. Seriously, Julie, let's get serious, seriously. She laughs and tells him to shut up. Then he takes the biggest hit, she takes the biggest hit possible. Dennis even tells her that that was a big hit, but then it hits her and she starts coughing. Dennis tells her to do the voice, and she pr produce pr she proceeds to do the voice. I have zero idea of who or what she's supposed to be imitating. I I don't know. But using the voice, she tells Dennis that she can't believe he's filming her smoke marijuana. Briefly after, she's laying eating dry cereal and laughing. What did Cat Williams say? There was something he said about uh the side effects of weed. Um Julia's high as fuck. She's laughing like shit. She's eating cereal, but it's fresh out of the box. I I don't see how people can eat dry cereal, but you know, whatever. Dennis whispers to her that she's beautiful, and she just responds by telling him to shut up. Continuing to whisper, he tells her that he wants to film them having sex. Oh my goodness, for once, can we get a paranormal activity movie without a sex tape mention? Because geez, it's wearing thin at this point. He asks if it's weird, and she answers that she doesn't know, but unlike Katie, she's down for it. Setting the camera, Dennis makes attempts at subtle flirts, but it's actually kind of cringe. He double checks, making sure that she's up for it, and she tells him to hurry up before she changes her mind. The two move into position, and yet again another cringe moment from Dennis as he imitates porn music. Julie Dumbfounder asks what he's doing and what was that. So he answers that it's port is porno music. Of course she laughs, climbing on the bed, he very awkwardly puts his hand on her breast, finally moving in to kiss her, but then it's interrupted when Julie thinks that she hears something. Sitting still for a moment trying to listen for additional sounds, a picture frame hanging from the wall drops and it startles her. The house then begins to shake, and Julie repeatedly shouts that it's an earthquake, reminding him about the girls, she repeats, as they both panic, they run out of the room, and as the camera continues to record, dust falls from the ceiling and landing on a figure that's just standing there. It remains there for a minute or two and then it finally collapses to the floor. We cut to the next day and we see Dennis and Julie in Dennis's workstation watching the footage from the night before. Julie tells him that she looks so fat and that he looks like he can't breathe with her on him. He replies that she doesn't look fat, she looks beautiful. He he calls the moment beautiful, and he wants another shot at during another tape. He points out the figure while she tells him that he has to erase the tape, and he asks her if she sees the figure in the corner, but all she sees is dust falling. He disputes it, saying that there's something there, but she calls him crazy and that it's very cute. He's one of those people who think they see they see things. She adds it's like the people. That see things in food, like seeing the Virgin Mary in Toast. That's him, that's him right now, telling him that the tape has to be erased or they're never having sex again. Thanking him for erasing the tape, he tells her that she's going to regret saying that, but she tells him that she doubts it. Dennis responds that he doesn't think that she can go a day without sex. Julie tests that by telling him not to dare her. He quickly tells her that he's not erasing it. In the next scene, Randy, played by Dustin Ingram, comes into the garage, repeatedly apologizing for being late, and Dennis questions what he's doing that makes him so late. Randy tells him that it's it's his car. So Dennis tells him that he got the earthquake. Randy sees the footage on the monitor asking if that's a sex tape, so Dennis answers that yeah, but it was interrupted by the earthquake. But a weird thing happened afterwards, and he shows him the figure, so Randy asks him what that was. Dennis doesn't know. He adds that he's been hearing noises in the girls' room and he feels something weird is going on. Dennis goes to find Julie and finds her using the bathroom and she quickly closes the door. He asks her if she minds that he sets up some cameras around the house, but she tells him that she's not going to talk to him right now. He tells her that he'll take that as a yes. Jokingly, she tells him that she hates him, and he just responds that he loves her too. Shortly after he sets up cameras in the girls' room, Katie asks how long the tapes last, and he responds about six hours each. So then she responds, asking that if he has to change them every six hours, so of course he answers yes. As he adjusts the camera, Katie asks what he's trying to see, and he responds anything strange or unusual. Walking away, he tells the girls not to touch the camera. Now in his bedroom, he begins setting to set up and Julie questions, but he responds that it's a new house and it shouldn't be making these noises. It's not just there, but in the girls' room too. Julie asks, What is he trying to catch? So he tells her whatever is in the house. Julie sarcastically responds, right, because there's always something there watching them. But he answers that there's definitely something he can feel it. Julie and Dennis head to bed and we get our first text. September 10th, 1988, 91, 142 a.m. As their door is partially open, again, who sleeps with their bedroom door wide open? Like I just don't get it. There's no way in hell I can sleep with any doors open. Like everything has to be shut. I don't get it. We see the usual camera cycling through each room, but then Christy wakes up and walks over, and she answers as if she she was woken up by Toby. She's answering as if he's asking her questions, saying, Yeah, probably, followed by in their bedroom, be quiet so they don't wake Katie up. She then asks why. So at this point, I'm assuming Toby must be asking about Dennis because Christy answers that, well, yeah, kind of, and he's very sweet. Christy returns back to bed and goes back to sleep. The next morning we see Dennis talking to Christy, telling her he watched some of the tapes on the camera and saw her talking to somebody late last night. Christy tells him if he saw her talking to somebody, then it would be Toby. And Dennis just kind of chuckles, then asks if Toby is her friend, and she answers, Yes, he's her friend. He asks her, What do they talk about? And she answers secrets. Dennis wonders if he's old like grandma or young like her, so she answers, old like grandma. Dennis asks, What he looks like, is he tall, is he fat? And Christy answers that he's tall, but don't call him fat. Dennis continues by asking her that when she says that if she tells one of her secrets that she'll be in trouble with Toby, what does that mean? She replies she won't be safe. Any questions questions asks if Toby said if he'd hurt her. She quickly answers no, but he but she won't be safe. That means she'll be in very, very big trouble. Later on, Dennis says to Julie that she saw Christy. She was talking like he was actually there. Julie responds that she knows because that's how active kids' imaginations are. It's crazy, but Dennis tells her, imagination is one thing. She got up in the middle of the night. That's what I was thinking when I first saw it. Christy woke up from a dead sleep to have a full conversation. So I think at this point, Toby did wake her up just to ask questions, and like that's a completely different situation. That's no imaginary friend. Dennis finds it a little odd that she got up in the middle of the night, but Julie pays it no attention. She tells him that he hasn't been around kids that long and that they do weird things, adding that Katie used to get up in the middle of the night and she used to sleep on the toilet. Dennis laughs about it, so Julie tells him that Toby is a phase and he'll be gone in a couple weeks. She knows it. Later on, Dennis is in the garage with Randy and he asks Dennis how many hours of footage does he have. So he answers that that's the job. He's got two cameras, six hours each, so 12 hours. Randy in disbelief responds, 12 hours of footage. Dennis answers, well, yeah, he's gotta do it. He's seriously, is he's he's gonna seriously sit and review it. He's trying to, he's trying to concentrate, and Randy tells him that it's stupid because there's only 24 hours in a day. Julie pops in and Dennis asks if she wants to step into his office and do some work with him, but she declines, asking if he found anything. Randy jumps in saying, Yes, actually, they did find something. They found that her family sleeps all night. She playfully responds, very funny. She tells Dennis to keep up the good work and leaves. Shortly after, Dennis and Randy have a debate over a Title IV project they're working on. Dennis tells him it should be called Back to the Past, but Randy thinks it should be called Back to the Present. End of story. That doesn't make much sense to me. I don't like Back to the Present, like past tense, it it just doesn't sound right. Dennis tells him that doesn't that doesn't make any sense, and Randy argues that it makes total sense. Dennis corrects him saying, Let's get back to the present, maybe, but back to the past. Randy is determined on back to the present. The debate is interrupted when they hear a noise, so they obviously go to investigate because why not, right? They enter him and Julie's room and they track the noise to the closet. So Dennis makes sure Randy is recording as he opens the door. He reaches to move some clothes on the hangers when suddenly Julie jumps out and scares the shit out of them. Dennis looks like he was about to become a track star and run and get the fuck out of there. Randy just screams, Holy shit, that it's that funny, calling them crazy. Dennis sitting on the toilet trying to get it together while Julie taunts and laughs at him. Dennis admits that she almost gave him a heart attack and to get away from him. We cut to the next scene and Dennis goes out back to check on the girls who's camping out in the tent. He brings them snacks and the girls mischievously plot, telling him that they have a little surprise for him, and they begin to count down before ambushing him with their toys. So he playfully attacks them, then tells them goodnight before heading back inside. In the next scene, we get the text, September 14, 1988, night 5, 3.26 a.m. We see Julie and Dennis sleep in bed, and in the background, footsteps are heard along with the sound of a door opening. The hallway light turns on but then it turns off, but they're sleeping through it. The footsteps continue, eventually waking Julie up, so she listens momentarily before laying back down. The footsteps continue, so she wakes Dennis up and tells him that she thinks that the girls came inside. He gets up to go to check on them. He goes up to their room, but they aren't there. Julie patiently waits, calling out for Dennis, but when he hasn't responded, she gets up to also go check, but she's quickly distracted by a noise in the bathroom. She's quickly startled when Dennis rushes into the room to get the camera. While she's like in the background, while she's like walking towards the bathroom, their bedroom door actually starts to slowly close. Julie and Dennis go to check on the girls and discover that the back door has been locked this whole time. So she asked him if he locked it, but he didn't. They wake the girls up to go back inside. That's how you know that times have changed, like obviously for the better, but also for the worse. I'm an 80s baby slash 90s kid, and I lived outside. Like, not literally, but like what I mean is I spent on the weekends, I spent all day outside. I would wake up, cartoon, cereal, get dressed, and by 10:30, 11, 11:30, I'm out, I'm out of the house. As long as I came in and check in periodically and was back home when the street lights came on, I was good. There, like, there weren't really like worries back then, like as much as today. Today in 2025, it's become a scary world for our children, especially in today's society. There's no way in hell that kids they could camp out while their parents were in the house sleep. It's just that's just not the type of world that we live in. But that's not a topic for this podcast. We already know the dangers of this world and what society has become. Anyway, moving on. We cut to the next day and we see Katie jumping on their trampoline, showing Dennis her special trick, which is just a slam dunk on a basketball hoop that's you know not there. Dennis tells her that it's very impressive and very good, so she thanks him. He then asks Katie if she's sure that they didn't come sneak in the house last night, but she responds and Piki swears that she did not go into the house, and neither did Christy. So he asks her if she can do him a favor and tell her mom that. Upstairs, Julie and Lois are making the girl's bed when Lois asks where Dennis is. Julie answers that he's out buying more tape, so Lois questions if he's using her credit card. Julie, obviously annoyed with Lois already. She quickly tells Julie that he doesn't have any money, but Julie defends it, claiming that it's not true, and the girls love him and they think he's about the coolest guy ever. Lois cements that she does like him and she really means it. It's just that the girls miss their father, so she just wishes Dennis was a little more financially stable. Julie continues to defend Dennis, telling Lois that he is financially secure, he has a job, but Lois interrupts her saying that he shoots wedding videos. Does she not know or not realize like people back then they had to hire videographers for special events? It isn't 2025 like how it is now, where you can do it yourself. Photography, videography, same difference. I feel like Lois needs to chill out because her granddaughters and her daughter they genuinely love Dennis. So shouldn't that like hold more value? But you know, whatever. Julie asks that he has his own business, it's a whole different thing. Lois changes subjects asks asking about another baby, and Julie quickly responds, saying that she told her she doesn't want any more kids, she's not going to get pregnant, and Lois reminds her that she always said she wanted a big family. Julie answers that she changed her mind. She has two beautiful girls, and Lois, for whatever reason, just won't stop. Like, damn. She adds that Julie always said that she wanted a son, but Julie shuts it down, telling her that she's happy with the way things are. If you remember, Ali Ray told us in the second movie that if a deal is made with a demon, they must forfeit the first male born. So this probably makes the point as to why Lois is pressing the issue of Julie having another baby, and that she would be hoping for a boy so the deal can be met. In the next scene, Julie is in the driveway teaching Katie how to roller skate. As Randy is unloading things into the garage, he makes a brief mention of Bloody Mary. So Dennis asks Randy what Bloody Mary is, and because he doesn't know, and Randy questions how he doesn't know. As a kid in the 90s, I knew what Bloody Murray was, I knew what Candyman was. Well, actually, I knew nothing of Candyman until I watched the movie. The movie came out in 1992, so I actually was old enough to know. But Bloody Mary, I learned from kids my age, kind of like um a word of mouth type thing. I never there were so many different variations of Bloody Mary, just like Candyman, there's so many different variations of each story, but at least I knew I was very familiar with the story of Bloody Mary. Randy explains that Bloody Mary is where you go into the bathroom and you say Bloody Mary three times in the mirror and then you see a ghost. Katie overhears it and tells Dennis that she wants to play Bloody Mary because she wants to see a ghost. Randy tells Dennis that he's missing half of the stuff in the house without cameras down. Dennis responds that he knows. Eventually they discuss camera angles with Dennis saying that certain angles don't work because it's not a wide enough angle, and he also doesn't know if they make lenses that wide. Dennis is attaching wood to an oscillating fan so he can attach the camera to it. Now constructed, Dennis places his new creation near the kitchen so it captures the front door slash living room area in the kitchen as well. Julie walks in asking him what it is, so Dennis tells her that he took her fan apart and basically mounted the camera to the oscillator portion of the fan. It will allow him to see both areas. So she asks if he broke her fan and he answers that he can put it back together, so she calls him MacGyver. The next scene we get another text, September 17th, 1988, night 8, 402 a.m. We see Julian Dennis in bed sleep. So as we cycle through the camera, there's no activity. But when we see the girls' room, we see that Christy is not there. But when we go back to Julian Dennis's room, we can see Christy run past the door. Christy now in the kitchen, she clams on the table. So as the camera continues to pan through the room, it pans to the kitchen, and when it pans back to the living room, that she's gone. But now she slowly peeks in Julie's room before running off, stopping to giggle. It's obvious that she's playing with Toby, and as she returns to her room, she's waking up Katie who asks Christy what she's doing. So Christy answers that she's doing nothing. So Katie tells her to go back to bed. It's late. The next morning, Julie goes upstairs to the girls' room asking what Christy is up to. While she's sitting and painting, so she asks Christy, doesn't she want to go outside and play? And so she answers, No, not really. Julie questions her by asking about her friend Toby and if she still talks to him and she answers, yeah. Julie asks if he woke her up and Christy tells her no. Julie continues asking if he told her to go downstairs and she answers no. Julie assures her that she can tell her anything. Christy tells her that Toby told her not to talk about it, and why doesn't she just ask him herself because he's standing right next to her? Hell no. Hell no. At this point, throw the whole kid away. That's where I'm at with it. Julie looks kind of nervous as she's looking around and tells Christy that she doesn't see him. But Christy replies, He's there. We cut to Dennis and Randy in the garage as footage is being reviewed. Dennis thanks Brandy for getting the books. That turns out that he stole them from a library. Brandy claims that he didn't steal them, but he didn't check them out either, because Dennis told him to get the books, so he got the books. He asks, he adds that that's what a library is: a place for borrowing. Yes, that's why you check out the books. You're borrowing the books to return them, but you didn't check them out. Brandy keeps going, telling him that's what library means in Spanish. It means borrow bookstore. Dennis gives him the are you serious look. Dennis finds one, Malevolent Entities. So he asks what that one is, and Randy doesn't know. He only looked through it for a second. It had creepy pictures, so he grabbed it. Dennis makes a joke about Randy's sister and her friends, and of course, he asks if that's supposed to be funny. As Dennis is reading, he tells Randy that according to the book, kids are susceptible to spiritual contact. But Randy is clueless as to what that means. So he explains that it's the same as Christy and her imaginary friend. He reminds him that he told Randy the crazy stuff started happening only when she started talking to her imaginary friend. Randy answers that according to the book, it must want something. They don't stick around for no reason. It's obvious that it wants something, so Dennis questions what it wants because the book says it feeds off of your fear. It cuts to September 19th, 1988, night 10 at 12.58 a.m. The camera cycles through the rooms, and in the bedroom, Julie wakes up and goes to the kitchen and grabs a snack. So while the camera pants, we see over by the front door the chandelier light is swaying back and forth. As Julie finishes up, she goes to wash the dish, but whatever utensil she was using gets stuck in the garbage disposal. So in true horror film fashion, she reaches inside the drain to retrieve it. Us as the audience, we expect the we expect the garbage disposal to turn on, right? But don't worry, it doesn't. Maybe if this was like a slasher or an actual haunted house story, it would, but the paranormal movies aren't big on gore, so that wouldn't be the case. But me, I hate reaching in the drain. I always worry that it's going to turn on while I'm reaching down. But surprisingly, it's actually a common fear, so at least I know I'm not the only one alone in this. The light continues to sway when suddenly it drops and shatters, waking everybody up. Julie rushes over, telling the girls to stay upstairs, and Dennis comes out to check on Julie, asking if she's okay. Toby has a thing for like hanging objects. In the first paranormal activity, there was like one or two instances where the chandelier was swaying back and forth, but it never fell. And obviously, in the second one, uh the pot fell a couple times from the rack that was also hanging. And in the final act, when the power goes out, when Daniel's looking for Christy and Hunter, and when Ali points that they're in the basement, you can actually see their chandelier uh swaying too. Um, I bel there's actually a chandelier moment in the fourth one. I'm not sure about the marked ones. There might be one in the ghost dimension. I'm not sure. We'll have to see when we get there. I don't want to go too far ahead. We cut to the next day. Dennis goes to chat with Christy while she's having a tea party with Teddy Ruxpin. He asks if he can join her, and she tells him sure. So he sits the camera down, but when he goes to sit in one of the chairs, she stops him because that's Toby's spot. Dennis apologizes and gives Toby like an imaginary pat on the back. They sit and have their uh party. Dennis asks, What was the last thing Toby said to her? But she tells him just secrets. But then Christy says, sorry to Toby because she put her hand on him and he doesn't like that. Okay, I'm sorry. That's for me, that's too specific. Again, it's one thing to have an imaginary friend, but to apologize because you touched him, so because you touched him, he's mad about it. Like that's very creepy, but it's very concerning. Dennis obviously pays it no attention. I I don't know. Dennis responds, he doesn't like that, and she answers no. So Dennis apologizes to Toby, claiming that it was a mistake, and she agrees. Christy starts to say something, but then Dennis asks, and she tells him nothing. He assures her that she can tell him anything, but she says, Never mind. We abruptly change scenes because now Katie is there and Dennis isn't. Katie asks why Dennis Camera is there, so she answers that her and Toby were having a tea party and he was filming them. Katie starts taunting Christy, telling her that only babies have imaginary friends. Christy argues that he's real, and she continues to antagonize Christy by calling her a baby. So Christy demands that she stop it, but Katie responds, telling her that she's being a baby. So Christy responds that she's not and points to the trapdoor from earlier in the film, telling Katie that he's right in there. Katie, girl, you better stop, so we're gonna get your ass. Katie starts taunting Toby, telling him to come out, and since he doesn't, she tells him that she's coming in. Christy tells her that she shouldn't do that and to not go in there. But Katie just mocks her and goes inside, telling Toby to come out. Suddenly the door slams shut. Katie immediately starts yelling at Christy, asking her what she's doing and demanding that she opens the door. Christy thinks it's funny, telling her that she shouldn't have done that. Katie continuing to yell, telling her to open the door, but Christy answers that it's not her and that it isn't because we the audience see that she's just standing there. Julie hears the commotion and comes up to the girls' room asking what's going on and demanding that they stop fighting. Katie tells her that Christy locked her in there, but then notices that she moved the camera. So she tells Katie that she shouldn't be touching his stuff and to stop fighting, she doesn't want to hear it. The girls continue arguing. Katie says to Christy, who locked her in there, so she tells her that Toby did. Katie doesn't believe her, obviously. The camera sits there facing Teddy Ruxpin for a brief moment. I don't know why, but for some reason I was expecting like for him to move, but then I had to remind myself that this isn't like a Chucky type movie. But damn, you know, at least fall over. Like give us something so we're not just staring at a bear sitting there. Later that night, Julie's in the kitchen preparing to head out with Dennis for the night. The doorbell rings, so Katie opens the door, and it's Lisa the babysitter, played by Joanna Brady. She greets Katie and Katie immediately takes her upstairs to show her some of the new beads she got for her birthday. That's a callback to the first film. As we remember, Katie had her uh her bead making station at Mika's house. So that's a quick little callback. Lisa then greets Christy, but then she sees the camera asking Julie what it is. So Julie answers, not to mind it. It's Dennis and his cameras. After telling the girls their bedtime, her and Dennis head out. Upstairs, Katie asks Lisa to tell them a story, a ghost story, so she jokingly puts on a sheet pretending to be a ghost. We fast forward to 10 11 p.m. Lisa is having a drink in the kitchen, and as the camera pans to the living room, and as it pans back to the kitchen, Lisa is gone. But suddenly she jumps in the frame, giving us a cheap. Jump scare. Lisa now sitting at the table during work. She had a book bag when she got there, so I'm gonna assume she's a student. Anyway, the camera continues to pan back and forth, but then the living room by the front door, you can see something standing there with a sheet with the same white sheet that she was wearing, and it's the height of a child. The camera goes back and forth, but when it goes back to the living room, it's gone, only to be standing behind her as the camera comes back into frame. Lisa is sitting there, but she senses something because she stops writing and kind of like looks up. But right before the camera leaves the frame of the kitchen, it suddenly drops to the floor and it's gone. Lisa looks behind her and that's when she sees the sheet. She goes upstairs to check if the girls are asleep and they are. She moves towards the direction of the trap door, and as soon as she kneels down, the door either bursts open or slams shut because we can see her hair fly back like it was blown or like a breeze from the you know the force of the door. She gasps and then runs downstairs. A brief moment later we see Lisa waiting by the door with her stuff, and as soon as Julie and Dennis return, she leaves immediately. She leaves and doesn't say anything, she just leaves. Dennis and Julie both admit that that was weird. Julie goes upstairs to check if the girls are asleep and sees that they're still asleep. The next day, Dennis shows Randy the footage and points out the sheet, and he can't believe what he just saw, so he then shows him what happened in the girls' room, and they're both in shock from the footage. Randy asks Dennis what the fuck that was, but he has no answer. He just simply answers that he doesn't know. Randy wonders if Lisa said anything at all, and Dennis tells him that she left abruptly. He asks Dennis if he showed Julie, but Dennis responds that no, she would flip out, she would go nuts, and she would make him take the cameras down, and that he simply just can't do that right now because he wants to figure out what this wants. Randy tells him that he has to keep taping this shit and adds that she got blown in the face and then he laughs. We cut to later that night and we see September 22nd, 1988, 913, 217 a.m. The cameras do the usual cycle through each room, but then the girls' room we can hear the trap door slowly open, so Toby must Toby at that point must have waken Christy up because she creeps into Julian Dennis's room and she stands in the doorway, and we see the time speeds up before stopping at 3:31 a.m. Christy returns upstairs and walks over to the door whispering no. She doesn't want to talk to him anymore, and she's going to bed. Christy, you might you fucked up, girl. If I didn't know any better, Toby's probably pissed. The next day, Dennis goes up to the girls' room to check the trapdoor and he quietly whispers, What the fuck? He then grabs the camera and shows inside there's a symbol written on the wall. The symbol itself is a triangle with a circle in the middle. I looked it up and this symbol does have an actual meaning, but I can't tell you what it means right now because it reveals something, you know, later on. So just know that this symbol we will see a lot as the series uh progresses. Dennis goes downstairs and Julie tells him that they need to go to the doctors because she's burning up. Dennis asks, is she really that bad? And Julie answers that yeah, it's bad. She's taken her temperature a couple times talking about Christy. So Dennis asks if she wants him to go with her, but she doesn't know because who's gonna watch Katie? He suggests that we call Randy. Christy, I told you you fucked up. Because now shit's about to go down, like Toby's about to turn it up a notch. They wait by the door as Randy arrives. Dennis tells him that they're gonna be at the hospital for a little bit and then they head out. Randy asks what's wrong with Christy, and Katie answers that she she has a really high fever and he wonders if it's contagious, but she tells him that she doesn't think so because she hasn't gotten sick. Randy asks Katie, what does she want to do? And of course, she wants to play Bloody Mary. Good job, Randy. You talked about it around her, so you see what you did? This is your fault. Randy tells her that he has no idea what she's talking about, and Katie sarcastically responds, Seriously? He cautions her, telling her that he doesn't think it's a good idea. She reminds him that he made a promise, so he has to do it. So he asks if they can go play dollhouse instead, and she dismisses it, telling him to get the camera. Randy looks into the camera and apologizing and adding that it wasn't his idea. Grabbing the camera, he then walks into the bathroom. Katie instructs him to say Bloody Mary three times and then wait a little and turn the lights back on. And then you're supposed to see her body in the mirror and she's gonna try to kill you. Randy repeats, try and kill you. Good game with a thumbs up. He questions why she would want to play it, because one of them is going to be dead by the end of it. He guesses it's a one-time game. Katie turns the light off and they both start saying Bloody Mary three times, and after a brief pause, he turns the light on and Gash telling her nothing happened. Katie tells him that he turned the light on too soon. Katie, girl, you literally just learned about Bloody Mary when you heard Randy telling Dennis about it. So how do you figure you know the story or the rules or how you're supposed to do it? You didn't know anything of Bloody Mary prior to Randy telling Dennis. Randy answers, like, Come on, this is stupid. And he tries to actually leave, but she blocks the door, telling him that he can't leave. Randy pleads to go play Dollhouse. She continues that he didn't do it right, so he questions what did he not do right? Katie explains that he needs to keep the light off longer, and Randy responds, You want to play Bloody Mary? So let's play Bloody Mary. She's not going to see anybody play Bloody Mary the way he's about to play Bloody Mary. The lights now off, they both chant the name three times. Now in complete silence, he asks if she can turn the lights on, but she tells him to be quiet. After a few more seconds, he asks, How about now? and she susses him again. He hears a faint scraping sound, asking Katie if she heard that, but she didn't. A few more seconds another faint scraping noise is heard. This time Katie asks what that was, and Randy confirms that he heard it too. Suddenly we hear a very loud scraping sound, followed by Randy yelling, Holy shit. Katie turns on the light, revealing a very large scratch on his side. The scratch is massive. It's it's long as hell. Katie asks him if he's okay. Randy's voice trembles as he tries to assure her that he's okay. He pulls his short his shirt back down, telling her that he must have scratched himself. But while that's happening, a rumble is heard outside of the bathroom, catching Katie's attention, asking if he heard that. He answers, yeah, but it's okay. Before he can even finish the sentence, through the crack of the door, something runs past it as we see a dark shadow that ran by. I don't know why I said something like Toby ran by. I should have just said Toby ran past. Katie screams and shuts the door, but soon after the soon after the door knock starts to rattle, and there's banging her from the other side. And let me tell you this: this sequence is intense. Um is actually probably the most intense sequence out of the out of all three so far. Like the cabinet scene from the second one was um it was it was too sudden to be intense, but the climax of the second film is and is intense, but it's not nearly as intense as this one. Um and like I said, Toby was gonna turn it up a notch, and that he does. So anyway, with the chaos, Katie and Randy are screaming in fear, and I want to say it's giving earthquake vibes because like, and I say that because like through the chaos, it seems like everything is shaking, or maybe it's just Toby losing his shit and crashing out because um Katie originally was mocking Christy and said that he wasn't real. So Toby is like, I'm not real. Alright, bet. I'm gonna show you I'm real, and it actually um puts me in mind of like the scene from um it uh chapter one. Um let me see if I can find it. This isn't real enough for you, Billy. I'm not real enough for you. Oh shit. It wasn't real enough for Georgie. Everything finally calms down, at least for now. So Randy asks Katie if she's okay, but tears are pouring down her face. So Randy asks for God to be with him. As he's opening the door, he's praying to God. Katie is behind him crying, saying that she doesn't want to play it anymore. Everybody thinks it's a game until it's not. Like, this is when you fuck around, you find out. Randy does his best to assure that it's okay, they're okay, she's fine, he's fine, they're fine. He tells her to stay there. He opens the door, and suddenly the table Christy and Toby were sitting at earlier in the film flips over and he screams, holy fuck, and slams the door, but tells Katie nothing happened. Sir, you just shit yourself. Something definitely happened. So are you trying to convince her or you that that nothing happened? Katie tells him that she wants to get out of there, so he tells her that they're going to get out of there. He starts pumping himself up, pumping himself up, and um slowly they they open the door, and poor Katie. She apologizes, telling Randy that she's sorry and that all of this is her fault, and pleading with him not to tell. He doesn't have to tell, it's recorded, and Dennis is gonna see it. Man, listen, the way I would have ran out, man, fuck that. I would have left the house. Like, nah, throw these kids away, they on their own. I'm out of here. In the next scene, we see Randy, who's obviously scared, starts grabbing his stuff while Dennis asks where he is going and that he needs to relax. He's practically chasing after him at this point, but Randy is over it. He's smart and he's grabbing on his stuff, and he's he has no intentions of coming back, and you can't blame him either. He's clearly annoyed. He tells Dennis to get the camera out of his face, and he explains that he felt something in the room with them, and then he felt a claw digging to his side. Randy then gets up, and Dennis asks where he is going, so he answers that he's going home. He continues telling him that he needs to read the books. This isn't Casper, the friendly fucking ghost that he's chasing. This thing is dangerous. Dennis apologizes that he got hurt and asks, What is he gonna do? Just quit, telling him that he's acting ridiculous. Dennis, like, what the fuck do you mean? This man was just attacked. He has a big ass scratch on his side. You've seen footage of Christy talking to this thing. You saw the footage of from when Lisa Baby sat, How the fuck are you not scared? Like the audacity to tell him that he's being like ridiculous, like, go watch the fucking footage. Randy tells him that he's acting ridiculous if he's not going to get the fuck out. That at the very least he has to tell Julie. He asks that he needs to watch the tape and he and he leaves. In the next scene, Dennis is watching the footage and picks up in a book, picks up a book on demonology, and he goes and gets Julie and tells her that he needs to talk to her. Not sure where to begin, for some odd reason, he shows her a picture from the 30s and tells her to look at their necklaces. It's the same symbol that's in the girl's room. All of these women are part of a coven. Julie tells him that he's really something. He continues telling her that he really has to tell her this. We cut to Katie chasing Christy up the stairs into their room, but suddenly Katie runs into Toby, and as she's standing there, she's looking upwards like she's making eye contact. Now keep in mind, the only one that can see Toby is Christy. But when Katie runs, you can hear the sound of the impact of her running into him. Back in the garage, Julie argues that Dennis sounds crazy, asking him how crazy he's starting to sound. Dennis asks for a moment for him to explain, and he goes on to tell her that the covenant would have ceremonies and they would wait until the girls were old enough to get pregnant and then take their sons and brainwashing them in the process. Julie responds that she's not listening. We cut back to upstairs. We see Katie slowly calling for her mother as she's walking backwards, looking terrified, and I mean rightfully so, as she slowly glances to her left, she's then yanked in the air by her hair. While this is going on, Christy doesn't even come out the bathroom at all. So, like, did she set this up? Like, did she know this was going to happen? Because you don't hear her and you don't even see her. Dennis and Julie continue to argue, with Dennis telling her that he needs to show her something. But at this point, Julie is pissed and doesn't want to hear it. He continues to protest that he needs to show her something, and Julie's not having it. She tells him that she can't wait another second, so he asks why, and she answers, because Christy is upset all the time. The argument is then interrupted when Katie rushes in, telling her Toby pulled her hair. Dennis asks, What happened? So she repeats it. Julie tells him that this is his fault. This is exactly what she's talking about. No more cameras, no more ghosts. It ends tomorrow, and walks inside, slamming the door behind her. He tries telling her that she has to watch the tape, but she's already walked out and gone inside. Two things. How is it his fault? Christy is the one who started the existence of Toby. Secondly, then it's like, why the fuck would you start with the conversation with the shit from the book? Like, why didn't you start it off by showing her the actual footage? You had so many options of proof of footage that you have Christy talking to Toby, the babysitter, Randy getting attacked. All of that is on tape, so why not show her that first? Like, fuck the book. Show her the camera doesn't lie. So like I don't get it. We cut to later that night, and we see our usual text. September 23rd, 1988, night 14, 1:38 a.m. Julie is asleep, but Dennis isn't there. He's actually in the garage working on a wedding video. The camera cycles through the rooms. The girls are asleep. The TV in Julie's room turns on and it's nothing but static. The trapdoor in the girls' room opens. Katie's blanket suddenly starts to move, but it's enough to wake her up. Now that she's awake, she's looking around and the Teddy ruck spin falls off the dresser. She calls out to Christy to wake up, so Christy tells her to go back to sleep. Over on the dresser, a screen lights up showing the symbol that Dennis was mentioning earlier. All around Katie, chaos is starting to brew. She calls out for Christy, who tells her that Toby's here. Listen, y'all, I would have shit myself. Like, for her to say Toby's here, like, yeah, shit all the way. Katie yells that she's scared and calls out for Julie. Christy tells her to stop screaming, that it's okay, just ignore it. Okay, Christy, ignore the fact that shit's about to jump off, but out of nowhere, it just stops. So, have you ever heard of the calm before the storm? Because that's exactly what this is. Suddenly, Katie's blanket gets ripped away. Katie gets up and goes to run, but she is snatched off her feet and dragged away. Julie has no idea because she can't hear the chaos over the TV static because the TV, like the volume gets turned up. Katie is trapped over by the call crawl space, and as like she's pounding on the door, so she's calling out for Christy. She manages to get away and crawl towards Christy, screaming for her to help her, pleading for her to help her, and suddenly everything gets sucked to the corner, moving Katie's bed off to the side. So when she gets up and tries to get up to run, she's violently dragged again, pulled back into the crawl space, screaming for Christy as Toby won't let her go. Christy runs over and repeatedly screams to let her go and to stop. In Julie's room, the static is drowning the sound of the chaos, and Dennis can't hear because he's wearing um he's wearing the headphones. So as Christy continues to scream, she finally agrees, telling Toby that she'll do it. Just let her go. Katie crying crawls out from the crawl space and runs to Christy's bed. If it makes you feel bad, like it makes you feel really bad for Katie. Like these past few days, old girl has been like the worst. Toby's been putting her through it, but I guess that's what she kind of gets for not like believing. She mocked the whole she mocked her the whole time. So I mean I I guess. Back in Julie's room, the TV turns off, and Dennis is still working, and they're both completely unaware of the chaos that just ensued. The next morning, we see Julie telling Christy that no, they're not going to grandma's house. Christy questions why, so Julie answers that they're not going to go to grandma's house because there is no Toby, there is no ghost, and Christy responds, Yes, there is. And she goes to walk away. So Julie stops her and tells her, Don't run away from her. This is the end of it. She doesn't want to hear any more of the ghost talk. Christy goes upstairs and Katie asks, What does she say? And Christy answers that she said no. So in the kitchen, Julie's on the phone with Lois, and she tells her that no, they're not coming over, they're staying right there because she needs to get things back in order. So in the midst of this, so now Christy has asked, and you know, Julie already said no. So in Toby's mind, he's like, Okay, so I guess I guess I'll have to do it. And like that also brings like something else to my mind. Um, you at the end of Avengers Age of All Trauma, when we first see Thanos, the first words out of his mouth is, Fine, I'll do it myself. And that's where it puts me in mind of um, check it out. I'll do it myself. The phone conversation gets interrupted when there's a knock on the door, so Julie goes to answer it and there's nobody there. But when Julie returns to the kitchen, literally everything is gone. The shelves are empty, the counters, everything on the counters is clear, it's gone, even the table and chairs are gone. Julie stands in shocking disbelief, but suddenly everything comes crashing down from the ceiling and then sends Julie running away and screaming. Without hesitation, she yells for Dennis to get the girls, they're getting out of there. In the next scene, we see them arriving at Lois' house, and the text appears, Moore Park, California, September 1988. Lois tells everyone to come inside that she's got apple pie. In the background, Lois asks what happened, but Julie doesn't want to talk about it, telling Lois that let's just drop it. Dennis walking around sees Christy looking at a painting in the dining room, so he tells her not to touch it. A moment later, Dennis and the girls are outside, and we see Julie and Lois inside talking. Later that night, Lois and the girls are in her room and Julie walks in and sees that they're playing dress up. Lois asks, Doesn't she see, doesn't Christy make a beautiful bride? Julie asks, Well, who's the lucky guy? And what do you know? She answers Toby. Dennis does a double take, and Julie is over it telling girls, Alright, it's bad time. I didn't think about this before, but while I was like taking my notes, I noticed that Lois doesn't even act clueless. She either knows about Toby because of them, but like, or does she know in general? Because I would have been like, Who the fuck is Toby? I don't know, maybe I'm overthinking it, you know, whatever. Julie tells the girls that she doesn't ever want to hear Toby's name ever again. Lois tells Julie that it's just pretend, and Christy tells Julie that he is real. The girls get in bed and Julie tells them that her and Dennis are gonna be right next door and they'll leave the light on so if they need them, they can find them and everything's gonna be fine. Is it though? Dennis sits the camera down and Julie asks when is he gonna stop taping them? So he answers, not until this thing is over. They get in separate beds, and Dennis asks, When is Lois gonna let them sleep in the same bed? But she doesn't answer. She instead tells him that she can't stop thinking about it, and well, obviously she's talking about the kitchen. He tells her to relax, just to close her eyes and tries to sleep, so she gets in the bed with him. Keep in mind he's laying on a twin-size bed, but she makes it work. We see the timestamp speed up before stopping at 1 22 a.m. Dennis wakes up to noise outside, so he listens a bit longer, and as the noise continues, he wakes Julie up. He asks her if she hears it. It sounds like cars, that's what he hears, but she answers that it's Lois. She's always up at night, she can't sleep. But because she's so loud, she questions if um she quite she asks Dennis if he wants her to go check it out. Because Lois is gonna wake the girls up at this point with the noise. After a moment, he whispers Julie's name, but she doesn't answer. So he walks over to the bathroom, and when he returns, Lois is standing in the dark in the background, and of course, he doesn't see her. He continues to whisper for Julie, and since she's not answering, he goes and grabs the camera, and we now see that the hallway is clear. Lois is not there. He goes to check on the girls, and they're gone too. Dennis goes to the top of the stairs and calls out to Julie and the girls, but nobody answers. So he goes downstairs, but he can't find anybody. He continues to search, and as he enters another room to look around, there's a window to another room that has a light on. And Dennis hears a noise behind him and he looks, and of course, there's nothing there. But when he turns around, there's a silhouette of a person standing there on the other side of the window. He enters the room and the person is gone, but on the walls, there's the symbols that were hidden behind the paintings mentioned earlier. Specifically, the painting Christy was looking at, it has the same exact symbol that we've seen all movie. The other symbol is an inverted pentagram. Dennis whispers, what the fuck? Continuing to call out for Julie, he follows a path leading to a garage, and when he opens the door and turns on the light on the camera, there's a group of old women standing there, and he says, What the fuck? before running back inside the house. Now panicking, yelling out for Julie, he runs to the front door and tries to open it, but he turns to see Julie standing at the top of the stairs. He starts to approach her only to discover that her feet aren't touching the floor. She's floating and appearing to be dead. Suddenly, her body is thrown at Dennis, causing him to fall down the stairs. Laying on the ground, Christy appears and calls out to Julie. Dennis runs and grabs her hand. Christy asks what happens to Julie, but Dennis continues to run with Christy and they hide in a closet. He then tells Christy not to talk as footsteps approach, he covers her mouth. The doorknob starts to rattle while there is banging on the other side of the door. On the outside of the door, something is growling. Christy's muffled screams can be heard as Dennis begs her to please be quiet. It briefly calms down, so Dennis goes to open the door to check, but a dark shadow runs past the door. Dennis then slams the door shut. Christy asks what that was, so he answers that they're going to get out of there. And as they're running out back, there's a bonfire with a group of women dressed in all black standing around it. They run towards the door off the front door and see Katie kneeled near kneeled near Judy's Julie's body. Dennis tells her to get away from there, but she's unresponsive. He tells Christy to wait right there and don't move. He begins to approach Katie slowly. Her cries can be heard as he's walking up towards her. Once he's close enough, he reaches to touch her shoulder, but Katie she softly giggles. Then he touches her shoulder, and then it reveals a demonic face with black eyes. That sends him flying backwards. So she runs off. Now struggling to get up, he starts kind of crawling, but not really towards where Katie was. But here's the big reveal because surprise, Lois comes around the corner and stands there in front of him. He looks up at her, and as he's trying to get up, Toby growls and knocks him back down. Suddenly, his body is bent backwards, and we hear his bones break, effectively killing him. It kills him instantly. Katie walks over and grabs Lois' hand, and guess what? As they start walking up the stairs, Christy turns and tells Toby to come on and also grabs Lois' hand. She tells them as they're going up the steps, let's get ready. A low growl can be heard, and as the film turns to static and turns off, it makes me question like was Katie Katie, was Christy in on it? Like she helped get Denny Dennis in that position. So like I'm thinking she, you know, played a factor in it, you know, that sneaky little shit. But also in the static, if you slow it down, if you slow it down just enough, the hidden scene that I mentioned in the beginning of the movie, well, in the static, if you slow it down and pause it, you can see Julian Dennis's house on fire. So, anyway, what do you rate paranormal activity three? Because, ladies and gentlemen, that's it. That's paranormal activity three. So tell me what your impressions are of the movie. Where do you rate it? I for me personally, I give it eight out of ten. Like, by far, it's the best one in the franchise out of all seven of them, at least to me. And like I said before, this one is actually one of my favorite horror films of all time. So, you know, when we finish the franchise, I will put all seven movies in a ranking. Anyway, if you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review and/or five stars on Apple, Spotify, iHeartRadio, or Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform. Your feedback helps us reach other horror fans like you, and a good way for us to interact would be on TikTok slash Instagram at Chills and Thrills Podcasts or Twitter slash X at Chills and Thrill. I can also be reached via email, chills and thrills podcast at gmail.com. In closing, as Ghostface always asks, what's your favorite scary movie? But because next week we'll be reviewing your next nightmare. Until then, see you next week. Later, folks.