Aberdeen Voice

The found footage supernatural horror series Paranormal Activity has now reached its sixth and final instalment. Aberdeen Voice’s Andrew Watson reviews The Ghost Dimension, more or less a sequel to Paranormal Activity 3.

Not many people came for the Tuesday midmorning showing at Union Square’s Cineworld, the film having being released almost a fortnight ago. It perhaps serves to prove that this franchise has run its course. Though not hackneyed in the sense it shows cupboard doors flapping of their own free will, it’s largely predictable.

Having said that, the you-know-it-is-coming moments frighten because you can never totally anticipate that split second they’ll make you jolt; though that’s the case for just about every horror film, good or bad.

Plus points, however, include when the besieged protagonists explore the nature of the demonic presence they seek to be rid of.

The plot itself generally revolves around father Ryan Fleege (Chris Murray), wife Emily (Brit Shaw) and daughter Leila (Ivy George). Ryan’s brother Mike (Dan Gill) joins the family for Christmas after breaking up with his girlfriend.

Suspicions regarding the house are roused when family friend Skyler (Olivia Taylor Dudley) comes on the go. She’s somewhat of a Feng Shui expert and her comment upon its ‘energies’ validate what soon takes hold.

Whilst preparing the house for the festivities they find a box of tapes they’ve never seen before. Out of curiosity, brothers Ryan and Mike view some of them not realising that they’re family videos belonging to the previous family that lived there.

In fact, the current house is built upon the site of that very family’s house, which burnt down. The footage, which is not only weird and potentially satanic, references the current householders despite being recorded years ago; describing them in great detail.

The main debate with this is whether this girl with her eyes closed in the video is picturing the future, or is in fact viewing these viewers in some sort of spiritual plain within the present. Being honest, it seems a tad reminiscent of the girl coming out of the screen of the television in The Ring.

Leila starts acting up, though it begins innocently as what they think is her talking to an imaginary friend. It turns out that this imaginary friend seeks the young girl in a bid to take a physical form.

Things escalate to the point where they call in Father Todd (Michael Krawic), a priest. Despite being bitten by Leila during a fit of rage, he doesn’t think that she’s possessed.  He therefore elects for a cleansing, and not an exorcism.

Concern had already grown for Leila, and they’d placed a camcorder in her room in a bid to get a handle on what’s going on. During another very active night, Leila is seen via this surveillance walking through a passageway that has appeared in a crack above the headboard of her bed.

Perhaps this is the same spiritual plain within the present in those family videos, ‘the ghost dimension’.

One thing you cannot knock these films for is a lack of unhappy, and in turn conceivably realistic, endings. No psychics battling spirits of the netherworld, at least not this time round. Just feeble, mortal men and women clinging onto life; logic and reason leaving them as panic overtakes them.

Spy thriller Spectre is Daniel Craig’s fourth outing as James Bond. It’s not as good as the previous Skyfall, though even that wasn’t particularly remarkable. Aberdeen Voice’s Andrew Watson watched the most expensive Bond movie yet in its second day in cinemas.

There were just over a dozen people at Vue on Aberdeen’s Shiprow during the Tuesday morning showing, which was probably good given that most people were at work at that time of day.
Casting-wise the composition of its starring actors is interesting. Much time was spent placing the voice of main antagonist Ernst Stavro Blofeld.

Indeed Christoph Waltz is best known by many as Jamie Foxx’s sidekick in Django Unchained. 

He’s very soft spoken like Bond’s previous adversary, Skyfall’s Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem).

Anyway, the film primarily revolves around Bond and his main love interest Dr Madeleine Swann, played by Léa Seydoux. She’s the daughter of a man with serious links to a shadowy organisation called Spectre.

Basically Bond starts the film following the death wish of M (Judie Dench). Her assignment from beyond the grave lands him in some serious trouble. It turns out that new management at MI6 wants to steamroll the ‘00’ project, and 007’s transgression justifying this process.

He goes rogue anyway, and tracks down Swann’s father. Upon revealing his daughter’s location, someone to help Bond in M’s search for answers, he urges him to protect her before killing himself.

This is amidst the new setup of the British intelligence services, soon to turn global, warring with the old guard like the current M (Ralph Fiennes). The latter is, of course, in favour of the ‘00’ project.

When Bond seems certain to die, inextricable links are made between himself and Blofeld. The revelation concerning Bond’s childhood almost makes enduring some of the film’s less watchable moments worthwhile just for this alone. Of course, looking back it was Bond’s upbringing that made Skyfall intriguing.

However, barely a couple minutes of key dialogue within a film clocking almost two and a half hours is a lot to ask. Highbrow types maybe wouldn’t have the patience.

The fascinating detail revealed is seemingly the one of few things of substance revealed in the duration; the rest just cars, combat and explosions. The whole “Bond, James Bond” routine early on in the film in this particular outing is meant to be brooding and sexy, but just comes off as corny.

Yes, despite how more serious Bond has become in the Craig-era there are, thankfully you suppose, some lights moments; the third ‘c’, comedy.

Overall it’s typical of most Bond films that have preceded it: spy thriller slightly more intelligent than your average exploding action film. Shaking, but not too stirring.