Paranormal Activity 4 is haunted by the sequel problem

With the next Paranormal Activity due in October, how can the series shake off the curse of the lame horror franchise?

It won't come as a surprise to you to hear that Paranormal Activity 4 will be released in October. Why should it? Every Halloween, like clockwork, a new Paranormal Activity movie comes along; made for pennies, but raking in millions. Sure, the film needs to be written, performed, edited and released at whipcracker pace – so far, neither a writer or director has even been hired – but it doesn't matter. Paranormal Activity 3 has made over $200m so far, so it'd be silly not to keep churning them out until the wheels fall off.

The problem is, the wheels might fall off at any minute. The Paranormal Activity formula is now so slick that the films pretty much write themselves. There is a family. They set up cameras all around their house. Nothing happens for 45 minutes. Something goes bang. Nothing happens for another 45 minutes. Someone falls over. The end. That's essentially been the gist of all three existing Paranormal Activity films, with just the lightest of tweakings (there was a baby in the second one, the third one was set in the 1980s and filmed on VHS cameras). If the fourth film continues in this vein, there's a real chance that audiences might just turn up for the last ten minutes to see who falls over, and then go home again.

So Paranormal Activity 4 needs to veer off into a new direction if it wants to keep people interested. But how? Let's start off by reassuring you that I'm not suggesting any form of Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 treatment here. Paranormal Activity has its own aesthetic, and it'd be stupid to lose it, especially to a witlessly conventional sequel.

However, the second and third film hinted at potential plots for the fourth. One would be to follow the newly demonic Katie and her abducted nephew Hunter after the events of the first film. However, that idea is let down by the fact that demons aren't especially well-known for going around recording their every move on a Flip camera.

The other would be to explore the origins of the coven glimpsed at in the dying moments of the third film. Again, there's a problem in that the third film was set 23 years ago, and by that time the coven was made up of old women. Unless one of their number happened to be a particularly obsessive kinetoscope enthusiast, their movements would be impossible to record.

But there's hope for the Paranormal Activity series. After all, the films have followed a traditional pattern for a horror franchise – a story, then a near-identical retelling of the story, then a prequel – which means that it merely has to follow the path laid out by its forebears to succeed.

That's why there's a good chance we'll see Paranormal Activity: The Revenge or Paranormal Activity: A New Beginning come October. Or maybe, if we're lucky, Paranormal Activity Takes Manhattan. Don't hold your breath for Paranormal Activity In Space, though – that one's at least three sequels away.

What would you like to see in Paranormal Activity 4? Something new? More interminable static shots of the same hallway? A Paranormal Activity v Saw mash-up?

The Guardian