Movie Review: ‘PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: THE MARKED ONES’

[toggle title=”TRAILER”][youtube id=”J39iyK_aqDE” width=”560″ height=”350″][/toggle] It’s not a secret, I’m not a huge fan of the Paranormal Activity franchise. I thought the first one was ok but it just didn’t have the impact that something like The Blair Witch Project had on me. I haven’t seen Paranormal Activity 4, which I hear is not a bad thing that I skipped it. Paranormal Activity 3 won me over and made me interested in where the franchise could go now that I have some emotional involvement with the characters. Paranormal Activity also won over audiences by taking away the premium Halloween horror movie spot from the Saw franchise. When Halloween 2013 rolled around, I’ll admit – even though I wasn’t caught up – it was weird not having a Paranormal Activity film in theaters. It was announced that there would be a branching off with a film that would have a Latino flavor of the franchise in addition to Paranormal Activity 5 coming in 2014. Jesse is a 18 year old who just graduated high school. He and his friend Hector play around with a new HD video camcorder and a new GoPro and pull stunts like riding down some stairs in a laundry basket to pulling off some covert boner-op in trying to spy on the spooky lady who lives below them. And you know what, it all works. The introduction to these characters, who are totally relatable and charming, coupled together with this new semi-open world aspect compliment each other wonderfully. The film starts out as the breath of fresh air this stale franchise needs. There is no need to keep a family in a house and only have us, the audience, see their daytime questioning of the nighttime paranormal activity. Even though I liked the 3rd entry, some of it still felt a little pedestrian. What helped with that film was the family aspect and that seems to be writer Christopher Landon‘s strongsuit. He has been involved in all of the Paranormal Activity films, with him being the sole writer of the third one (the one I have liked the best). If anyone would get these films out of a repetitive rut, it would be Landon. Sadly, the first act that sets up everything beautifully on a tee falls apart in its boring and dull middle act. Jesse’s friend, Hector, still shines as somewhat an innocent young teenager who just wants to know what is going on with his buddy. The rapport between him and Jesse is natural and that needs to be commended. The parallel when Jesse gets interested in a random girl and the fact that Jesse’s life starts to spiral out of normalcy is an interesting idea but much like the middle act of the film, there are some good ideas that just aren’t fleshed out. The final act even gets more ridiculous. gone are the subtle supernatural shots -specifically a mirror shot that has no sound cues but to people paying attention, they should catch it – and in come the cheap scares. Creepy girls, old women and typical horror clichés infiltrate and suck any energy out of this latest entry. While the final sequence in a house is decent, it loses much of its impact due to the saggy middle end. The film seems very promising at the beginning and if you were to read some advance reviews, you would think that this film would be an improvement. While part of me would question that maybe I didn’t enjoy it as much because I’m not a big fan of the franchise, the audience I saw it didn’t seem to particularly scared by it.

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