DJANGO UNCHAINED

Django Unchained (2012)

My Score: 9.0/10
IMDB Score: 8.7/10
Rating: R
Favorite Lines: "I like the way you die, boy" and "Cora, say goodbye to Miss Laura"..."Bye Miss Laura!"
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Stars: Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kerry Washington and Samuel L. Jackson


When I first watched the trailer for Django Unchained I was disturbed and intrigued all at the same time; I wasn’t quite sure which one I felt more strongly. But I knew I was NOT going to see a movie about slavery, and definitely NOT a Quentin Tarantino film about slavery and ABSOLUTELY NOT on Christmas Day. Well y’all...I DID NOT see that movie...on Christmas Day. I waited until after New Years and after I heard from multiple sources (which included mostly Black friends and family) that they did NOT leave the theater extremely jaded about the future of this country, vehemently furious about it’s past, or exceptionally mad at all White people. So I put my big girl pants on and dragged my mom and aunt to the movie theater to see Django AND I LOVED IT! I’ve actually seen it twice now and it is most likely going to be added to my collection when it comes out on DVD.

So why was I so hesitant? Well, if you’ve ever seen any of Quentin Tarantino’s films NOT on censored television, but in theaters, on DVD, or whatever, you know that his films are usually bloody, gory, cut-throat and offensive. I mean they’re phenomenal films but be ready to see Daryl Hannah’s eyeball get plucked out and squished into a moldy blood-stained carpet (Kill Bill vol 2.) or for Samuel L. Jackson to blow the brains out of some guy sitting in the backseat (Pulp Fiction) or for some Nazi’s head to be brutally bashed in with a bat (Inglorious Bastards). I could go on and on with examples but what I’m trying to explain is with Quentin Tarantino’s style you really see the insides of some guys brains splattered everywhere, you REALLY hear the skull cracking underneath the force of that bat, and you feel that eye getting ripped out and squished. I don’t know if its just me but I can’t help but wince and cringe each and every time and I wouldn’t say I’m squimish. But you may think differently! 

Anyways, Tarantino is raw and non-withholding with violent scenes making them dramatic and overzealous but extremely real and tangible at the same time. So I was definitely bracing myself for the whipping scenes and the blood and the gore in Django! The violence in Django wasn’t any worse than his other movies. However, to be honest, while I could bare the whipping scenes with Kerry Washington I couldn’t help but cover my eyes ***SPOILER*** when Leonardo DiCaprio’s character fed his “Mandingo” slave to some dogs or during the Mandingo fighting scene(took me back to Ellison’s Invisible Man). **** Both of these scenes were terribly graphic and evoked a deep sadness, pain and rage within me (Tarantino’s aim, I’m sure). However, because my great-great-grandmother, who lived long enough for me to meet, was the daughter of a slave...I don’t know, it was a little too much for me. Anyways, most of the violence in this movie involved Django “killing white folks for money”.

What did I like about the movie?
Let’s talk about this cast: Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Samuel L. Jackson, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Kerry Washington! Phenomenal. I loved everyone! Samuel L. Jackson did an amazing job acting as an Uncle Tom and depicting the actual power role  and complex relationships between the Master and his “servants”. The minute I laid eyes on Sam Jackson I immediately thought of Uncle Ruckus from Boondocks**. 

Uncle Ruckus's name is an amalgam of Uncle Tom and Amos Rucker, the latter being an African-American United Confederate Veterans member, who allegedly wanted to stay a slave after the Civil War. The name also bears a similarity to Uncle Remus.

Leonardo DiCaprio was amusing, yet creepily sinister as Calvin Candie; I don’t know when I’ll be able to NOT see him as a villain for a while. I absolutely love Christoph Waltz as Dr. Schultz; he has definitely redeemed himself (he’s in my good graces again) from his Nazi villainy in Inglorious Bastards and I’m really looking forward to seeing what else he’ll do in the future. Kerry Washington, like the many other women in this film, didn’t really have a voice (meaning she had very few lines). Her acting came through her facial expressions and because she is a great actress I loved it.
Also, the soundtrack was A-MAZING! Tarantino always uses an  interesting mix  of music  and he did not hold back for this movie. Django jumps across genres, from country, Latin, to rap and R&B; it even features an original song written by Jamie Foxx and performed by Rick Ross!  

Yes, there was a bunch of cursing, some in your face male frontal nudity, excessive use of the N word, lots of violence, yes Spike Lee disapproves and it will challenge you emotionally and psychologically! But there were many things I loved about this movie; it was original, daring, purposeful, and powerful.

TREAT. YO. SELF. Cinnamon Apple Pie Eggrolls and Fried Coconut Bananas

Fried Banana and Apple Pie Eggroll

Fried Coconut Bananas

Although I found this recipe in a Thai cookbook I tasted these delicious sweet treats sans the coconut on the city streets of Hanoi! They are yummy by themselves, drizzled with sweetened condensed milk or with a heaping scoop of ice cream. If you’re a weirdo and you’re not a banana fan this dish is great with a variety of fruit, such as apple and pineapple slices! So no excuses, its super easy, super cheap and supper yum!

Ingredients

1 cup self-rising (or all purpose; comes out a little different but still yummy)

½ tsp baking soda IF you’re using all-purpose flour

Pinch of salt (1/8 tsp)

3 heaping tbsp. sugar

1 egg, beaten

6 tbsp water

2 tbsp shredded sweetened coconut (or 1 tbsp sesame seeds)

4 firm bananas

Vegetable oil, enough for frying in your wok or deep         pan

 First, sift the flour and baking soda OR just place the self-rising flour in a bowl.

Stir in the sugar, egg and water until you have a thin batter (but thick enough to stick to the bananas). Then whisk in the shredded coconut so that it is evenly distributed.

Next, peel your bananas and carefully cut lengthwise and then in half cross ways to make 16 pieces. DON’T DO THIS STEP UNTIL YOU ARE READY TO DROP THESE JOKERS IN YOUR OIL otherwise they’ll get mushy and brown, ugly and gross.

Heat your oil in your wok or deep fryer (a small fry daddy is <$20 at Wal-mart if you’re really into frying). We dropped a piece of the coconut in the fryer to test if it was hot enough. You can also use a chunk of bread; it should brown in about 30-45 sec. Carefully drop the bananas in the oil. Please don’t burn yourself…hot oil hurts A LOT. And it will stick with you if it’s hot battered shredded coconut. Ja’Naie took over the frying because I’m kind of clumsy.  Flip the bananas over after about 12-15 seconds and cook for another 10 seconds on the other side if you’re using a deep pan/wok. If you’re using a fryer wait about 30-40 seconds. Test one or two to get your timing right and don’t crowd the pan or fryer. Place the cooked yummy goodness on some paper towels!

Serve this dish immediately. The hotter the better! Enjoy this dish with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, drizzled with condensed sweetened milk or honey or by itself. SO DELISH!

My best friend, Ja'Naie, helped me make these dishes for my family holiday party. Although these eggrolls aren't particularly Asian; I found this recipe on StumbleUpon and fell in love. This dish is a really cool take on a East Meets West fusion dessert. Picture if an eggroll and an apple pie made a baby; that baby would be a beautiful inter-pastry baby! The world would love and embrace that baby.

Cinnamon Apple Pie Eggrolls

Ingredients

2 medium apples (Granny Smith)

4 tbsp sugar

2 tbsp all purpose flour

Egg roll wrappers

3 tsp cinnamon, divided

Vegetable oil (1/2 cup if frying in deep pan, 2 cups in deep fryer, 1 tbsp for baking)

First, peel and finely chop (small pieces but not mush!) apples into a bowl. Toss with 2 tbsp flour, 3 tbsp sugar and 2 tsp cinnamon until well coated. To make the eggrolls, take one eggroll wrapper and place it on a plate. Spoon about a tbsp. and a half into the middle on a diagonal. Fold one corner over the filling tightly. Then take the side corners and wrap tightly from the side. Using your finger brush a little bit of water on the remaining top corner and roll the eggroll tightly sealing with the final corner.

Aha! This was definitely a trial and error dish!

Important tips:

• To keep your apple mixture from turning a gross brown color, squirt some lemon juice over them.
• If for some reason you don’t want to use fresh apples you can use canned apple pie mixture; however I’m unsure how it will taste. Also if you’re not an apple fan at all you can use other pie type fruits instead. My mom is actually allergic to apples so we made some cherry apple pie eggrolls with powdered sugar on top. If you’re using canned fruit topping/pie filling taste it to make sure its sweet enough! I added a tablespoon of sugar to the cherry pie filling because it was a little tart.
• Roll them tightly! Otherwise all the yummy juices will leak out and make a hot mess.
• Don’t overstuff the eggrolls or else all the juices will bust out and make a hot mess.
• Watch your oil! Make sure it’s not too hot!

To bake: Preheat the oven to 400 and place the eggrolls seam side down on a sheet pan line with parchment. Lightly brush the eggrolls with the 1 tbsp of vegetable oil. Bake for 15 minutes or until browned and crisp.

To fry: Gently heat 2 cups of oil over low heat until about 350 degrees. Fry each eggroll seam down for 3-4 minutes until golden brown and crisp. Let them drain on paper towels.

We attempted to bake these to be healthier but the eggrolls weren’t crispy enough. So we put some oil in a deep pan and fried them for a few seconds to crisp them up.

Toss the eggrolls with the remaining sugar and cinnamon immediately after cooking and serve hot! I also drizzled the eggrolls with a little sweetened condensed milk; caramel would work too!

I served this desert dish alongside the fried coconut banana with a scoop of ice cream for our holiday party. Everyone was skeptical at first because they were used to eggrolls being a savory appetizer. However, once they smelled the sweet aroma of apple pie they were excited to taste it. Everyone loved them; they were a great success!

新年， 新的开始！New Year, New Beginnings!

Happy New Year Everyone! 

With the onslaught of exams, papers and final assignments I had to take a break from my delicious meals, movie binges and blogging once again. The good news: I finished my first semester of grad school with a bang. Bad news: I haven't been here in over a month! But its a new year and I have some new recipes for you all to try! I'm glad to be home for the holidays. While at home I was able to recreate some delicious Thai treats I've been dying to try out on my mother. Check out the blog later this week for my movie post!

Thai Chicken & Lemon Grass Curry

4 servings

Ingredients:

3 tbsp vegetable oil

2 garlic cloves, crushed

Chicken breast tenderloins, chop into bite sized pieces

3 tbsp fish sauce

1/3 cup + 1 tbsp chicken stock

1 tsp sugar

1 lemon grass stalk, chopped and crushed

5 kaffir lime leaves, thinly sliced

1 tsp cumin

Curry paste:

1 lemon grass stalk, chopped

1 piece ginger, chopped

2 kaffir lime leaves, chopped

3 shallots, coarsely chopped (or ½ onion)

1 tbsp cilantro or ½ tsp ground cilantro

1 tsp fish sauce

1 tsp ground turmeric

Steamed Rice

First, make the curry paste. Place all of the ingredients in a food processor (or a blender) and process until you have a smooth paste.

Then heat the vegetable oil in a work or heavy sauce pan. Add the garlic and cook over a low heat, stirring until golden brown. Make sure you don’t burn the garlic or else it will taste bitter. Definitely done that before and its nasty! Add the curry paste and stir fry for about 30 seconds.

Next, add your chopped (bite size) chicken pieces to pan and stir until thoroughly coated with the paste. Stir in the fish sauce, chicken stock, sugar, cumin and cook stirring constantly for about 2 minutes.

Finally add the lemon grass and lime leaves. Reduce the heat and simmer for about 10 minutes. I actually used this lemon grass paste tube and minced garlic jar. Your hands don’t get smelly and you can put the jar and tube back in the fridge to use for many other recipes. It’s also really nifty because on the back of each tube and jar is a conversion chart telling you approximately how much paste in tbsp. or tsp. correlates to a stalk of lemon grass or a clove of garlic. 

These items can be found at Kroger, Harris Teeter, Wal-Mart, etc. in the produce section with the fresh herbs.

But if you prefer to use the fresh lemon grass make sure you crush it really well or else lemongrass can be kind of scratchy going down your throat.

I served this dish on a bed of steamed rice with a side of sautéed spinach. My mom describes my dish as aromatic, spicy, bold and delicious.

Pray for Rosemary's Baby & this Spicy Meal: Spicy Fried Ground Turkey with Hot & Sour Noodles

FULL DISCLOSURE Y’ALL. My absence has been a result of not only my computer crashing but my FAILED attempts to make Coconut Pumpkin Soup (I hate pumpkin, and according to Dr. Karen Andes, aka pumpkin soup expert, you NEVER add celery), Bhindi Masala and Spinach & Potato Curry (shoutout to Hamidah for helping me destroy these meals; I really tried Kushal. I’ve failed the Indian cuisine.  I guess I have to get a new Indian cookbook).  **Picks of my those meals at the end of this blogpost**

Anyways lessons learned, I finally made a delicious meal to post about!

Spicy Fried Ground Turkey with Hot and Sour Noodles

Spicy Fried Ground Turkey Ingredients:

2 garlic cloves

1 small onion

½ tbsp. minced ginger

2 tbsp. vegetable oil

1 lb ground turkey (recipe originally calls for ground pork)

2 tbsp. fish sauce

1 tbsp soy sauce

2 small tomatoes, chopped

3 tbsp. cilantro

Salt and pepper

So this is super easy; its basically the Thai version of spaghetti with meatsauce. First finely chop garlic, onion and ginger. After heating the oil in your seasoned wok over medium heat add those chopped ingredients. Stir-fry for about 2 minutes and then  stir in your meat. I will generally only be using poultry and fish in all of my meals because I don’t eat beef or much pork; but I will tell you when you can substitute a certain meat for another, like now. You can use ground pork, chicken or even beef I guess instead of turkey. Stir in the fish sauce and soy sauce; stir fry for an additional 1-2 minutes over high heat. Then add your chopped tomatoes, cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add cilantro, salt and pepper to tastes. Serve hot either on top of your hot and sour noodles! BAM. Done. Easy, painless and delicious.

Hot & Sour Noodles

Ingredients:

Vermicelli noodles; I used some good ol’ linguini b/c it’s what I had. Just being real.

4 tbsp sesame oil (don’t be shy with this)

3 tbsp. soy sauce

Lime juice (if you wish- sour component)

1 tsp. sugar

4 scallions, finely sliced

1-2 tsp. hot chili sauce, or pepper flakes

2 tbsp. cilantro, chopped

This dish is super easy; you can eat it by itself or with the meat. You can actually eat this HOT or COLD. BAM. Versitility. Boil your noodles, simple enough, all the college students out there know how to do this. Toss your drained noodles with half the oil. Mix the remaining oil, soy sauce, lime juice, sugar, scallions and chilli sauce or flakes in a bowl. Toss the noodles and mixture together in a warm wok. Top with chopped cilantro. YUM.

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Apologies for the late Halloween post. Between my computer crashing and a few cooking disasters I just couldn’t get it together. Anyways here it is:

Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

My Score: 8.0/10.0

IMDB Score: 8.0/10

Rating: R

Favorite Line: “Pain begone I will have no more of thee.”

Director: Roman Polanski

Stars: Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes and Ruth Gordon

I asked a few of my friends and family to help me choose a good Halloween movie and they helped me choose a classic. Rosemary’s Baby is about a young couple who move into a new apartment building with evil tenants.

Rosemary is a housewife and her husband Guy is a B-rate commercial actor.  So for some arbitrary reason they need to move to a new apartment building. Their friend, Hutch, from their old apartment building warns them about the building having bad joo-joo. They don’t listen. They move into the apartment building from Hell to meet their doom, her doom. Poor Rosemary.

Anyways before they even moved in they noticed that the old woman that previously lived there had pushed a huge dresser in front of a random closet. “Why would she do that?” they ask. Well, of course we find out later**. Rosemary moves in and does what housewives do in 1960’s movies. Absolutely nothing. Wait! She decorates and cooks of course.  The only kind-of-friend she has at the apartment promptly “kills herself” the day following their meeting. Meanwhile her mediocre husband stresses about the fails and successes of his mediocre acting career. Unhappy with her sad existence, life without purpose, and annoying neighbors she begs her husband to allow her to have a baby. He eventually concedes.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Little does she know after an undeniably weird dinner party her mediocre husband and the neighbors (Mr. and Mrs. Castevet) have hitched a half-cocked scheme to impregnate Rosemary with the Devil’s baby so the Castevets and the rest of the Wicans in the building can worship and raise Satan’s baby and so Guy, her husband, can be the star in some play. On the night of conception the Castevets drop off some homemade chocolate roofie pudding. Rosemary hates it and refuses to eat it. But her husband whines and guilt trips her into eating. BUT she holds on to some of her dignity by shoveling the pudding into a cloth napkin; I guess since she’s the one that’s going to be cleaning and doing the laundry later this wouldn’t warrant discussion in the future.

So she’s roofied. She’s out. Well…kind of. She didn’t eat all of the pudding so basically she’s paralyzed and slips in and out of one freaky reality to another weird dream state. In reality, she is surrounded by all of the BUTT NAKED Wican tenants of the apartment building while a demon rapes her. She awakes the next day with scratches on her back and proceeds to ask her husband why she has scratches all over her back. He explains that he was drunk and in the mood so he raped her, simple as that. End of discussion. CRAZINESS. Her only response: “we could have waited until the morning when I was conscious…”

It wasn't until 1993 that ALL 50 states recognized marital rape
as crime. However, majority of states still have some exemptions
given to husbands from rape prosecution.

Voila. She’s pregnant. The Castevets set her up with a world renowned doctor; he insists that she not take any prenatal vitamins and only drink Mrs. Castevets bizarre but nutrient packed natural shakes. She stupidly agrees. Rosemary suffers from pain throughout most of her pregnancy while friends and family tell her how horrible and sick she looks; yet, she waits until right before the pain stops to maybe consider getting a second opinion. Yada yada. Her old friend, Hutch, that tried to warn her in the beginning tries to warn her again and ends up dead this time. But he leaves her a book with clues as to who the Castevetes actually are; she starts digging and finds out her husband made a deal with the devil to blind the lead actor in a play in exchange for sacrificing her child! Almost there, Rosemary.

How she looked for majority of the movie: A mess.

She tries to resist and run away but with all of the male chauvinism, sexism, and Rosemary’s lack of common sense she ends up being trapped back at her apartment building and forced into labor. She’s kept unconscious and told her baby died. Is this the end? There’s still 15 minutes left!

The neighbors come and collect her breast milk. A baby is crying next door. A mother’s intuition. Her husband’s a pathological liar. All of these factors lead Rosemary to believe: Hey, something’s up. So she figures out there’s a passage (through that random closet**) that leads to the Castevet’s apartment.

There’s a party going on, a ceremony of sorts. And there’s her baby in a black veiled basinet. She rushes over to it and takes a look! “What have you done to my baby!” “It has its father’s eyes”, the good doctor replies. Huh? Oh yeah, Rosemary is the last one to know that it was the Devil that raped her and not her nasty husband. She pouts for a while and then is convinced to be the mother she is inherently meant to be and raise the demon spawn to rule the world in the future. WOMP.

ROSEMARY, HE IS NOT THE FATHER!

Kind of a disappointing ending. I would have appreciated Rosemary going crazy and blowing up the entire building Rambo style or at least killing the Satan baby or her HUSBAND!! But, alas it is what it is. Still a really good horror movie of the times!

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Looks nasty= Tastes worse Pumpkin soup

Bhindi Masala + Curry Looks Good= Tastes Eh.

Solution= Make junk fried rice= YUM.

Chili-spiced Shrimp Won Ton Soup &Stir-fried Chicken with Thai Basil: A Paranormal Meal (its beyond)

So this week I made two dishes a won ton soup and stir fried chicken. Both were extremely easy to make; the meal took about an hour to make. I shared this lovely meal with my good friend Kelsey Kirchmann!

Chili-spiced Shrimp Won Ton Soup

Ingredients

WON TONS

12 (or more) wonton skins- I bought mine from Dekalb Farmer's market in the freezer section

6 oz cooked, shelled shrimp

1 garlic clove, minced

2 scallions. finely chopped

1 TBSP soy sauce (I used low sodium)

1TBSP fish sauce

1 TBSP chopped cilantro 

1 small egg yolk, save that egg white!

SOUP

1 TBSP dried red pepper flakes

3 scallions, chopped

4 cups chicken stock (or beef stock)

1 TBSP fish sauce

1 TBSP soy sauce

1 TBSP rice wine

cilantro, garnish

Chop the shrimp as finely as possible. Mix shrimp with garlic, scallion, soy sauce, fish sauce, cilantro and egg yolk in a bowl. That was easy! Now to the tricky part, the won ton skins. Keep the won tons refrigerated until you need them! Lay them out on a flat surface and put about a dollop (about 1 TBSP) of the shrimp mixture in the center. It's ok if its a little too much. You'll get the hang of it. Brush the edges with the egg white (ahh see I told you to save it!). Fold the won ton into a triangle and seal the edges. Next bring the bottom corners of the triangle around to meet in the center, secure with some egg white glue and Voila! You have a perfect/semi-perfect won ton. Mine were pretty irregular, but guess what it doesn't affect the taste!

To make the soup, place the stock, fish sauce, soy sauce and rice wine in a large pan and bring to a boil. I used stock cubes, which made a difference. My broth ended up being really really salty; but I just added some more hot water and it was perfect. Add the pepper flakes and the chopped scallions to the broth. Then drop the won tons into the pan and simmer for about 4-5 minutes. Plate/bowl it up and garnish that booger with some cilantro. BAM!! Done. This dish only takes as long as it takes you to fold a won ton and boil some water!

Stir-fried Chicken with Thai Basil

Ingredients

1 lb chicken breast, skinless, boneless

2 tbsp olive oil

4 garlic cloves, minced

4 scallions, finely chopped

1/2 TBSP dried red pepper flakes

1 red bell pepper ( I like red better than green; its up to you), seeded and thinly sliced

a heaping 1/2 cup fresh basil (Thai basil is recommended), coarsely chopped

2 TBSP fish sauce

steamed rice (as much as you want)

First, cut the chicken breast into thin strips. Heat oil in your pre-heated wok and add the garlic and scallions. Cook them for about 2 minutes and then add the red pepper flakes and bell pepper, cook for another 2 minutes. Add the chicken and cook until browned. Stir in the basil and fish sauce and finish cooking the chicken. Serve over rice. That was soooo easy right? And quick! It'll probably take you about 15 minutes, more or less if you're a fast or slow chopper. 

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Paranormal Activity 4

My Score: 6.0

IMDB Score: 4.7/10 (it wasn't that bad)

Rating: R

Favorite Line: "He's weird" to say the least

Director: Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman

Stars: Katie Featherston, Kathryn Newton, Matt Shively

It’s getting close to Halloween and I love my scary movies so I’ll be reviewing creepy movies, both new and old, for my next 2 posts. I’ve totally been sucked into the whole Paranormal Activity hype. I know some people think the Paranormal Activity movies are stupid and not scary at all like “Oooh the ghost or whatever just pulled her toe…not scary.” But you know what? Can we be real for a second? Ok.

                                                                   Real. Talk.

If any of these things happened to you, you would have pooped your pants. Don’t Lie. How many times have you felt like someone was watching you or that you weren't alone in your home?

How many times have you stared at that person shaped shadow in your room and then breathed a silent sigh of relief when you realized it was just that coat and scarf you left hanging on your chair?

When that thump in the night makes you pause because you’re home alone! You know what I’m talking about. Don’t lie! Yeah you can chuckle it off when you discover it was just a book falling off your shelf but you were actually scared over something so “stupid”!

That’s why I think the Paranormal Activity movies are so scary. They tap into what darkness or scary force might be behind the shadow in the room, that feeling that you’re falling in the middle of a nap, or that book falling off a shelf. All of these silly, momentarily creepy things just become even creepier and actually dangerous when the characters in these movies try to investigate and unveil what that force may be.

So now just a brief synopsis of the first 3 movies ***SPOILER ALERT*** If you've seen all of the movies skip on to 4!

Paranormal Activity 1: Small weird stuff happens. Boyfriend gets camera and tapes weird stuff. Boyfriend messes with demon/ghost thing against Girlfriend (Katy)’s wishes. Demon/ghost thing gets bigger, badder, faster, stronger. Demon/ghost thing possesses Katy. Katy eats her boyfriend’s face. Her whereabouts are unknown.

Paranormal Activity 2: The movie is a prequel to the first movie. Thus Katy and boyfriend are still alive. Her sister, brother-in-law and niece have a new addition to the family, a bouncing baby boy named Hunter.  When they bring the baby home the house is “broken” into and a lot of their stuff is destroyed. So they install security cameras! Weird creepy stuff starts happening, small at first and then stuff gets REAL. The niece is the main investigator in this film. She discovers that her great grandmother was possibly a witch and made a deal with a demon to give it the family’s first son in return for wealth and power. Duh duh DAAAH. The demon is gonna get that baby. No one believes her until her step mother (the sister of Katy) is possessed by the demon. Etcetera, etcetera the only way to get rid of the demon is to send it on over to poor unsuspecting Katy. So Red Rover Red Rover….the whole first movie happened. BUT that didn’t work. Katy’s whereabouts are now KNOWN. She comes over to her sister’s house and kills everybody but (the niece who was on a field trip; can we say lucky?) and takes the baby. Katy and Hunter’s whereabouts are UNKNOWN.

Paranormal Activity 3: Yet another prequel to both movies. This movie goes to the very beginning, well kind of. Katy and her sister are little kids; their mother has a boyfriend who films weddings and bah mitzvahs for a living. Katy’s sister has an imaginary friend, Toby, who isn’t so imaginary or friendly. Weird stuff starts happening so the boyfriend uses his dated cameras to configure makeshift security cameras. Stuff gets even more REAL than in all of the other movies!! It was freaky y’all. Their mom doesn’t believe until her whole kitchen table and chairs almost crush her (watch the movie if you want to know what I’m talking about). So to grandmother’s house they go! This is the first time any of these characters have made it out of the house in all of the movies. But little did they know grandma IS a witch who made a deal with Toby? I don’t have that straight yet. Grandma and her gang of old witch ladies, with the help of Toby of course, kill the mom and the boyfriend. Katy and her sister live happily ever after (?) with their grandmother and apparently forget all that’s happened to them. Thus Paranormal Activity 1 and 2 exist.

So here we are with Paranormal Activity 4! I wasn’t sure if I was actually going to see this one. For months after watching the previews over and over I would either decide I was going to see it or I definitely wasn’t! But I did. This was thankfully not another prequel; it picked up where the second movie left off (Katy took baby Hunter and their whereabouts are UNKNOWN).  We have a new family seemingly unrelated to Katy and her sister. A teenage girl, her little brother and her parents live across the street from Katy and her “son”. The son is really weird; no surprise there. He sneaks over to the neighbor’s house at all times of the day and night and talks to his “imaginary friend”; sound familiar?  

So suddenly Katy has to be rushed to the hospital and stay there under observation for a few days. So the little boy has to stay with the family across the street he’s been creeping on this whole time. The mother’s explanation for allowing the little boy to stay at their house is that he has no family (CHEA cuz they’ve all been brutally murdered by Katy and this kid’s imaginary friend!). THIS MAKES NO SENSE. I would have just said “heck no lady I don’t know you and I don’t know you’re life…” but out of the kindness of her heart this lady opens her home to this child. The little boy creeps around the house talking to his imaginary friend, TOBY, and it weirds the teenage girl out. So naturally she wants to videotape her household. Her boyfriend has apparently been videotaping all of their skype sessions, which is CREEPIER than this little boy walking around the house. Can we just talk about how weird that is for a second? Anyways, he changes the settings on the 3 apple laptops and they set them up in the house to monitor the little boy. This is stupid. Number one, why does a five year old have a MAC (computer #1)? I don’t even have a MAC; and who uses a laptop just for recipes (computer #2)??? And can we talk about how much energy they’re wasting leaving these laptops plugged in? Not to mention no one moved the laptop once. Laptops are mobile! That’s their appeal as opposed to a desktop. Yet everyone in the family, except for the teenage girl who clumsily and awkwardly walked around with her laptop, left the laptops alone (on the middle of the kitchen countertop). One cool and creative feature they added to the personal camera filming was the XBOX 360 kinect night vision setting. Once the lights were turned off and some setting was set on the game system tiny bulbs of light filled the room. What’s the purpose of this? Duh, so we can see the supernatural! For some reason this family also left on the XBOX at all times. Made no sense; their electric bill had to be crazy.

Energy wasting aside, the movie actually started off really slow and took forever to build up. I was actually FALLING ASLEEP, which I NEVER do. I don’t believe in wasting $10+ on a movie and missing any part of it whether it’s horrible or not. So on a particularly dull part, I got up, bought some candy and a coke, stretched a little and returned to my seat ready to be thrilled. And it did get better!

I won’t spoil anymore of the movie for people that are waiting to see the movie. But you get to see a little more of Toby or I should say you begin to understand the many faces and forms of Toby. Toby becomes even more devious (how you say? Watch the movie); that was cool and scary. Also a little more of the family history is discovered about Katy. You still don’t understand some things about what happened between Hunter’s toddler years to his 5 year old self. In the end, after watching this movie you’ll be more suspicious of anything going missing in your house and spontaneously appearing later on AND you’ll be watching your back while you skype with your friends. I actually really liked Paranormal Activity 4! I might watch it again just in case I actually missed something significant during the dull parts. I jumped quite a few times. My face probably did look crazy like the people in the previews, especially towards the end of the movie. AND YES I SCREAMED! I wasn’t the only one, even though it felt like it because everyone in the theater screamed at the exact same time I did. I went to see this movie with my two best friends, so it definitely made it substantially more bearable as opposed to seeing it solo and having to return to an empty house. But my scream was REAL and totally justified. Yeah I laughed afterwards, but I was SKERD!

There WILL be a Paranormal Activity 5. That’s all I’m gonna say. Go see it if you dare! Muahahahahaha.