It takes almost no effort or ingenuity to keep the “Paranormal Activity” franchise going. Same conceit, new home. These are the movies of our times: housing angst, recording devices everywhere, quiet suburban disorder. These are also the movies of our old times: evil that arrives whenever new technology does, when marriages fray, when teenagers need sex, when parents adopt.

The camera in these movies — and in most films seeking the attention of certain young and youngish audiences — is a third, all-seeing eye. Who knows what omnipotent force is editing these weeks and months of footage into 90- and 100-minute comedies and action movies and horror films? Maybe someone’s saving the big reveal for an all-camera-phone “Wizard of Oz.” In the meantime, having the actors seem to do all the cinematography fosters a kind of formal identification: You could have made this!