Saturday, January 4, 2014

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: THE MARKED ONES

Well this is a surprise! PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 5, I mean PARANORMAL ACTIVITY:THE MARKED ONES is good. Really good. The third installment left a bad taste in my mouth so I skipped part 4. Turns out I did not miss much.

A brief history on my thoughts of the series. I love how the first film took Hollywood by storm and practically destroyed the torture-porn horror genre overnight. Part 2 (my favorite) kept the gravy train rolling. While still being a huge success this second entry split fans apart on what constitutes a good PA movie and what does not. PA3 pissed me off. I loved the trailers leading up to the movies release. I missed opening night due to some family issues. The next few days all I kept hearing was how nothing from the trailers were in the movie. I hate that crap! I caught the film later on Netflix. It was an underwhelming experience to say the least. I still haven't seen PA4 nor do I plan to.

In the coming years supernatural horror was where it's at with blockbuster hits such as INSIDIOUS, SINISTER, and THE CONJURING.

So it's 2014 and we have a new Paranormal Activity in January. January? Man, sorry for all you fans but that's not a good sign. Turns out the movie is good. The more that I think about it, PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: THE MARKED ONES is probably my favorite of the series! It's genuinely scary with moments that are not 100% loud jump scares. It's the first film in the franchise that really embraces it's R rating.

For a graduating present (I think), Hector gets a camera. Quickly him and his friend Jesse start filming everywhere around their apartment complex. Filming everything from Grandma getting drunk to dancing with the family dog. Strange things start to occur when a neighbor is murdered. While snooping around the crime scene the two friends find some weird trinkets and a notebook full of demonic script. In the following weeks Jessie is not himself. Hector and Marisol find some possible answers to what is wrong with their friend. They find out Jesse is a "Marked One", someone selected by a coven of witches (I forget the name if the movie gave one) for a demon army. If you've seen any of these films then you can already guess if Jesse's friends save him in time.

This spin-off added a lot of cool interesting elements, namely time travel or more appropriate teleporting. I won't spoil it but for a moment we see the apartment from the first film. A twist I found very enjoyable.

I highly recommend PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: THE MARKED ONES to fans of the series. Best of luck to what is in store for us with PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 5 or PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: THE MARKED ONES II.

No comments: