Paranormal Activity 4 is a 2012 American found footage supernatural horror film directed by Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost and written by Christopher Landon, from a story by Chad Feehan.
In November 2011, Alex Nelson is living in a wealthy suburb of Henderson, Nevada with her father Doug, mother Holly, and six-year-old brother Wyatt.
Alex records footage with a laptop webcam before Alex and her boyfriend Ben set up cameras all over the house after many strange occurrences, which escalate into several cars parked outside a neighbor's house, and objects such as chandeliers, kitchen knives, the family car, and garage doors becoming sentient.
Alex finds Ben's body in the house and is suddenly knocked down by an unseen force and dragged.
Alex escapes from Katie by jumping through a window into the yard, where she finds Wyatt and a crowd of women walking towards her.
[11] Contemporary technologies, such as an Xbox Kinect camera and Skype, were incorporated to make the film realistic to audiences using them and to keep the found footage style innovative.
[14] The end credits of the film include a dedication to actor Stephen Dunham, who played Alex's father Doug.
Dunham died shortly after filming was completed, suffering a heart attack on September 14, 2012, which was his forty-eighth birthday.
[19] With Paranormal Activity 4, Paramount continued the marketing method of holding "demand" advanced screenings and airing commercials with footage of audience reactions.
[2] 60% of audiences that viewed it on opening weekend were under 25, and it had an equal portion of male and female watchers.
[25] Before the opening weekend, some analysts predicted Paranormal Activity 4 to start at number-one but with a lesser gross than its predecessor.
[20][26][27] After the weekend, Smith suspected the 9 a.m. Thursday screening time allowed for negative word of mouth to get out sooner and that competition from Sinister hurt its potential.
[28] Brooks Barnes of The New York Times suggested negative critical reception and viewer fatigue from the franchise as well as found footage films trying to replicate it harmed interest in Paranormal Activity 4.
[30] The film was predicated by Smith, since after the opening weekend, to have a front-loaded run, where most audiences rush to see the film on opening weekend only for its numbers to decline dramatically in later weeks; he cited a 38% drop in gross from Friday to Saturday ($15.1 million–$9.4 million) and the fact that front-loaded features are the most prominent in the horror genre.
[31] The top-15 of the weekend also included newly entered films also underperforming, such as Cloud Atlas, Silent Hill: Revelation, Fun Size, and Chasing Mavericks; which Subers suggested allowed Argo, in its third week, to take the number-one spot.
The website's consensus stated that "While it does manage to wring a few more screams out of the franchise's surprisingly durable premise, Paranormal Activity 4 provides fans of the series with dismayingly diminishing returns.