![]() It had been such a relief to see a central location that wasn't a gorgeous SoCal home, and to be free of the increasingly gibberish storyline, so it's kind of a drag when it climaxes (twice!) in familiar spots, with "old friends" making appearances (and even a copy of one of the original's best scares). In other words, it spends a lot of time distancing itself from the mythos AND style of the flagship series, making it all the more puzzling when the 3rd act becomes, basically, Paranormal Activity 5. Shortly thereafter, Jesse starts noticing "changes" (and what appears to be a bite mark on his arm), at which point the movie turns into Chronicle for a bit, with Hector filming his friend as he demonstrates his newfound ability to lean back at 60 degree angles without falling over, or toss a would-be mugger 30 feet with little more than a shove. What they discover is a strange blood ritual of some sort, and it's not long afterward that the woman in the apartment is killed by an acquaintance of theirs. And instead of someone noticing traditional haunted house bullshit, it kicks off with our heroes hearing noises and investigating by lowering their GoPro camera through a heating vent so they can see inside the apartment below. It's also got a different plot and more characters - the main location is an apartment complex where roughly half of the residents are involved with the story at one point or another (plus Jesse's friends who seemingly never leave). Of course, the flipside is that there's little to no reason for them to be filming as the plot thickens (unlike the others where they could just cut to the always running security cameras), but at least the faster pace and heightened sense of simple MOVEMENT keeps you from questioning it while the movie's still playing. ![]() For the most part it's thankfully a single camera affair this time around, most of it is shot through Jesse's standard video camera, and they have a GoPro that they use sparingly (though there's an unexplained third one during a would-be sex scene), and while that means more handheld stuff that might make you nauseous, it gives the film an energy that the others lack - at no point are we treated to a title card saying "Night #1" or whatever and then forced to watch 30-60 seconds of a bunch of different views of the house showing nothing happening. So let's just focus on the first hour or so, where we meet our new heroes Jesse and Hector, best friends who have video cameras so they can film themselves doing dumb shit like riding a laundry basket down a flight of stairs. It's odd, to say the least, and the appearance of another series regular isn't very organic, either - and it adds even MORE nonsense to this concept to boot. I mean, the person literally shows up and explains a few things, without a single "Oh, since that happened to me I've been doing this and that", or even seeming like they are traumatized from their experience (though the trailer has footage from this scene that didn't make the final, so perhaps a longer cut will change that). However, I will say that some of it seems shoehorned in - an appearance from a returning character (not Katie) is so brief, and the dialogue so exposition-heavy, I couldn't help but wonder if it was added late in the game, as if they got cold feet about making a film that was entirely free of the increasingly convoluted mythology the series has (sort of) established. That is not the case here if anything it's more connected than the last "true" sequel (it at least explains more about what's going on) and a good chunk of it won't make a lick of sense to anyone who hasn't seen (and retained a solid memory of) the 2nd and 3rd films.īut getting into more about that would be spoiler territory nearly all direct references to the previous films are confined to the 3rd act, so I can't talk about them without ruining some of its surprises. ![]() Think Prometheus quality of the film aside, you can't say that any part of it REQUIRES you to have seen Alien or its sequels - it just adds to (or subtracts from, depending on your POV) the experience. Now, maybe Paramount has a different idea of what "spinoff" means, but in my house, that means it's something that doesn't require a full working knowledge of the flagship series - it takes place in its universe but otherwise tells its own contained stories. When Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones was announced, it was as a "Latino-centric spinoff" of the series, hence the lack of a number in its title (an actual Paranormal Activity 5 will hit this October after taking a year off). ![]()
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