LogFAQs > #945469103

DAY 4: Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones
On Amazon Prime ($4 rental)

This movie is a trip, and left me kind of confused.

Here's the deal: This isn't your typical Paranormal Activity movie at all. It's a refreshing take on the found footage genre, actually. They take this movie and expand the lore of this series in an entirely different way, but reject the idea of people in a house with a spooky ghost.

Instead what we get is a story about a bunch of Hispanic kids (which is very refreshing in itself) who just graduated high school and they have a crazy neighbor who is doing creepy cult stuff. When they look into it, they decide they'll conduct a ritual, and from there one of them begins to act differently.

As usual, not getting too far into spoilers here. I appreciate the attempt to take this out of the comfort zone of the genre, but this feels more like a found footage monster movie than anything. We follow a story and a mystery here and there's always something going on. The story itself is pretty basic, but it doesn't need to be anything more than that.

What's real good is the climax of this movie. I did not anticipate any of this batshit tomfoolery, and this entire climax is outstanding stuff, and might be some of the best scenes in this series. I surprisingly enjoyed this one--not as much as probably 1 and 3, but this was a really solid entry into the series.

I wish we could have gotten a found footage series with all kinds of insane nonsense like we get in this one. Like an anthology series tackling different kind of paranormal threats. But instead what we get is a series that is starting to feel like it's building up its own lore a bit too much. With the additions of this one and one more movie left, I don't see how we're going to have a satisfactory conclusion to this franchise. But still, what we got here is some really good stuff.

If you like Paranormal Activity and you feel like you want something that is like Paranormal Activity, but not at all like Paranormal Activity until like near the end, then I recommend this.

Rating: 7.5/10

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