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Reviewed by Jonathan Weichsel, MoreHorror.com
I have been reviewing horror movies online for various outlets since 2008, and people are always impressed with how many movies I have seen, so the admission that I feel obliged to make at the start of this review might startle some people. I really hope you are sitting down before you read the next sentence. Before tonight I had never seen a Paranormal Activity movie. I hadn’t even watched a trailer, clip, or seen any part of one on TV. Up until a few hours ago, Paranormal Activity had been a complete cultural blind spot for me.
The whole found footage thing just never really interested me. I have actually seen more found footage horror than most people, but it’s always when I’m covering some horror film festival and I have a perverse desire bordering on masochism to sit through every single film that plays in case I miss something. And trust me, you have got to be a masochist to sit through the found footage movies they show at film festivals. Either that or you have to be the filmmaker, but I have even seen them walk out on their own movies.
So, what did I think of my first Paranormal Activity movie, you ask? Well, it was kind of OK, but not really. At least it was better than I expected it to be, but I expected to really hate it so that’s not saying much. It has some good qualities as well as bad, and being a genuinely nice person, I’ll start with the good.
Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones features a main cast comprised entirely of Mexican and Mexican-American actors, and a script with dialogue that flows freely between English, Spanish, and Spanglish. Mexican-American culture is explored in a way that is interesting as well as respectful, and the characters are people you usually don’t get to see in a horror movie, or any type of wide release for that matter. Mexico’s unique brand of Catholicism is also explored briefly and provides one of the film’s most memorable set pieces, a very Mexican-flavored attempt at an exorcism.
The mythology behind Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones is also very well done. The witches are developed enough to be scary, but there is also a larger backstory that is only hinted at in bits and pieces. Also, there are a few good jump scares. That is what’s good about "Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones".
When most people bitch about found footage horror, they have three basic complaints, which are as follows. 1) The shaky camera gives them a headache, 2) They keep on thinking, “Why the fuck is that guy still holding the camera when ghosts are chasing him?” and 3) Found footage is just an excuse for talentless filmmakers to hide their technical ineptitude behind the fictional conceit that the film we are watching is shot by amateurs.
Quickly dispensing with these complaints, 1) I didn’t get a headache, 2) I was constantly thinking, “Why the fuck is that guy still holding the camera?” to the point of distraction, and 3) Even if it is only successful some of the time, Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones clearly knows what effect it is trying to have on the audience with its found footage gimmicks.
I personally have two other complaints about found footage horror that I have developed after years of attending horror film festivals, and which I would like to address here. My first complaint is that nothing ever happens in found footage horror movies. While watching Paranormal Activity: The marked Ones however, I felt like too much was happening.
The film starts with a high school graduation, and then moves into the apartment of the main family where a teenager and his friend spy on the neighbors below them by lowering a camera attached to a string down a shaft. They see a beautiful naked woman, but quickly realize that they are witnessing some kind of satanic fertility ritual performed by a witch.
Being teenagers, they start to harass their downstairs neighbors by daring a kid to knock on their door and shout, “brujas,” and by lighting off fireworks. But then there is a murder or something and the police come, and the witches disappear from the apartment. Then the teenagers decide to break into the apartment, and they find evidence of fertility rituals and a book.
The next morning the main teenager, Jesse, wakes up and he has something that looks like a bite mark on him, although there is never any explanation of how he got it. Jesse soon realizes that he has super powers such as the ability to levitate and beat up gang bangers who have been messing with him. He is also able to communicate with a paranormal entity through an old Simon game. This is all because of the thing that looks like a bite mark. He asks the Simon game yes or no questions, and the green light goes on for yes, and the red for no. Then he starts to get sick, which allows for some cool if mild scenes of body horror, and has trouble controlling his temper, which also allows for some cool but mild scenes as well. Plot points and set pieces continue to unspool like this, one after another, with no real connection from scene to scene.
The film really falls apart, however, when we learn that the witches marked Jesse at birth, to be claimed when he is eighteen, and that everything that is happening to him is leading up to this. Perhaps it’s supposed to be a plot twist to keep the movie from dragging at its midpoint, but it’s complete nonsense. He got the mark when he broke into the witches’ apartment, so how could he have gotten it at birth?
A film about a boy who was marked at birth to be claimed by witches when he is eighteen is a good idea for a movie. A film about two stupid teenagers who harass their neighbors who are witches and inadvertently start a feud with them which escalates, is also a good idea. But a film in which two teenagers start a conflict with their neighbors who are witches, and then learn that the witches marked one of them at birth is just stupid.
The second half of the movie, while interesting, has absolutely nothing to do with the first half. The first half of the movie is interesting too. If the two halves had fit well together in a way that made sense and felt coherent, or if the film had chosen one story line and stuck with it, I would actually be giving "Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones" a positive review. But as it is, it feels like Paramount had two screenplays and just filmed half of one and half of the other without concerning themselves whether or not it made sense.
My second personal complaint about found footage horror is that the hyperrealism of it doesn’t provide me with the escapism I look for when I watch a movie. With Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones this isn’t the case. The best quality of the film is actually its sense of fun.
The scenes at the beginning of the teenagers hanging out are genuinely fun and at times funny. A lot of the individual set pieces are also a lot of fun, but often cross the line into silly territory, for example, the afore-mentioned game of Simon.
At times it really seemed like the filmmakers were trying to ignore that they were making a found footage movie. There are points where the one character could have easily solved this or that mystery by rewinding the tape and looking at the footage his friend had shot, and there is a point at the end when they debate going to the police but decide against it because they won’t be believed, even though by this point they have plenty of video evidence to back up their story.
There is even a scene where a character steals a piece of paper with a phone number off of a wall at a gang-banger’s house, after he has video-taped the piece of paper that the phone number is on. Why would he do this? Since the character already has the phone number on tape, why risk angering the gang-banger by stealing the piece of paper it’s written on?
So there you have it, my non-fan’s review of "Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones". I am actually curious to see what fans of the series think of the film. Feel free to weigh in.