Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones

Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones

Starring Andrew Jacobs, Jorge Diaz, Gabrielle Walsh, Katie Featherston

Directed by Christopher Landon

Jesse (Andrew Jacobs) is celebrating graduating high school with his best friend Hector (Jorge Diaz), and they're both enjoying the new camera he got for graduation.  At first the two friends play stupid pranks and fool around with the camera, but when their creepy downstairs neighbor is murdered, the two investigate the murder and stumble upon decades old secrets of witches, curses and possession that begins to take over Jesse, and an age old family secret comes to light that ties Jesse in with the witches and which could bring his own destruction.

When the first "Paranormal Activity" came out, it was a phenomenon.  Personally, I didn't see the appeal.  There was a good chunk of the film where nothing happened, and then at the end everything happened.  Maybe people fell asleep and were jolted awake by the loud noises at the end, which resulted in them being scared.

Then the second film came out.  Once again, nothing happens for the majority of the film, until everything happened at the end.  Then the third, with the same result.  The fourth film?  Yep, pretty much the same.

So this supposed "fifth" film (although it's labeled as a spin-off, the "real" fifth film is coming out this year) decides to not challenge a different style, but instead follows the already downplayed previous films' order.  For a good two-thirds of the film, absolutely nothing happens.  Then the last twenty minutes all hell breaks loose, and we're supposed to care.  But we don't.  Because we've seen this before.  In fact, four times before. 

The worst part of it all is that it tries to introduce a new method to the previous films - time travel.  This makes the ending not only more confusing, but completely irrational and kills any sense of continuity the films tried to maintain.  Just with the "Saw" franchise, this one needs to just end.

My Rating: C-