Paranormal Activity 2 review

I am back! It’s been a couple of days since my last blog. But, here I am! I’ve been in the mood to watch horror movies lately even though Halloween just passed. So… I decided to watch a recently released flick, which brings me to…

BLAM!

If you haven’t seen the first Paranormal Activity, then why the hell are you reading this? Unless you want to be spoiled for whatever reason, I’d advise you to close this. Like right now. Please.

Just to refresh your memory on what happened in the first Paranormal Activity, I’ll break it down for you:

• There are two protagonists here: Katie and Micah. They’re a couple that has been together for quite some time and are living in a suburban place.

• Katie believes she has been haunted by some sort of demonic presence throughout her childhood and is still sensing things, particularly at nighttime.

• Micah thinks Katie is just overreacting, but decides to set up a video camera in their house to see if he can capture anything. Most notable spot belongs in their bedroom.

• A strange, supernatural phenomenon occurs minor at first, but begins to gradually increase as each night goes by, particularly when the couple is asleep. Katie believes the demon feeds off of negative energy and wants to haunt her.

• As each night comes and goes, Katie begins behaving erratically from sounding possessed to standing by the bed next to Micah for hours while he’s asleep.

• The final night, Katie apparently gets controlled by the demonic presence while she heads downstairs the house and lets out an eerily scream. Micah rushes downstairs, then we hear silence, and then footsteps slowly coming up. Micah’s body gets thrown at the camera and Katie lunges over towards the camera as we can see a demonic face for a brief moment. We’re to expect Katie killed Micah.

• The film ends by saying Micah’s body was found while Katie’s whereabouts were unknown.

So without further ado… 

She's excited like you

         

           

What's the deal: We’re introduced to a family, fresh off a newborn boy, into their house up in the suburban area in California. Everything seems happy and dandy until the home of Daniel and Kristi Rey gets “burglarized.” The house is completely trashed with the exception of the room of their newborn son’s, Hunter.

This begins the installment of surveillance cameras into certain parts of the house by Daniel, in hopes of finding who or what has been causing this. The family also has a daughter, Ali, who lives with them and also a hired babysitter/housekeeper, Martine.

The next few days begin some minor, supernatural phenomenons. Pots and pans are falling on their own in the kitchen; cabinets are opening; the pool cleaner mysteriously coming out the pool; lights flickering, weird noises, you name it. 

I got more scared when my water didn't boil

The maid, who is some sort of know-it-all demon expert, believes that there are evil spirits roaming within the house. At one point, she experiences the creepiness in the house and decides to burn some sort of incense and wave it all around the place, in hopes of ridding the evil spirits. Her actions cause Daniel to fire her because he refuses to believe that there are any supernatural beings behind this.

Get to the point: As you may remember if you saw the prequel, Katie, who is actually the sister of Kristi, talks about being haunted by a demonic presence during her childhood. We see flashbacks of them talking about this but Katie tells Kristi to not mention it because it’ll only escalade the problem.

As the days go on and on, the phenomenons start to intensify. There’s a shot of Hunter, who is sleeping in his cradle, slowly being pulled out of the cradle by a mysterious force. More strange things are happening within the house and even the dog becomes a victim. The canine is also able to sense the strange things happening in the house and decides to check what is going on downstairs when he hears a door opening. The dog barks ferociously and is attacked and pulled violently off camera by the phenomena.

When the family finds out that something has happened to the dog, Daniel and Ali takes it to the veterinarian, leaving Kristi and the baby alone. Kristi goes up to check on Hunter and as she’s doing so, she gets violently dragged by the mysterious force down the stairs. She tries to run back up but gets pulled back down and into the basement. Several hours later, the basement door opens and out comes a demonized Kristi.

As soon as Daniel and Ali come back, they notice that Kristi has been acting strange and unresponsive. They watch the footage they captured of Kristi’s attack and Daniel calls back housekeeper Martine. Martine prepares some sort of cross and tells Daniel that it will pass the demon onto another blood relative.

Daniel tries to use the cross on Kristi but she attacks him. After some back and forth fighting between the two, Daniel is finally able to touch her with the cross. The demon has now disappeared from Kristi.

However, some weeks later, Katie visits and describes the weird things happening at her place. This event transpires from over the first movie and comes into play in this movie. On a different night, Katie, possessed after killing Micah, breaks into the Rey family’s home and kills both Daniel and Kristi and takes Hunter with her. Ali at the time was still in school and then the movie ends, seemingly to conclude there will be a third movie.

Died a Johnny Cage death. Flawless victory

Worth watching?: Absolutely not. Unless you want to watch it just to complete it. The movie’s first 40 minutes or so is so drawn out and anticlimactic because of the tension they’re trying to build. Some of the scenes that build up tension don’t even result in a scare! More like a tease. And when something actually does happen, it’s not even scary! Unless you’re one of those who get scared when some loud noise happens, you will be fairly disappointed. Stay far away from this movie. Out the theaters. Behind the walls. Outside a building. Behind a tree. Near your dog. Inside a firetruck. Deep inside a cave.

I will say, though, that I appreciate the kind of movie Paranormal Activity has given the horror genre; the lack of any sort of background music at least tries to play up that the movie could be somewhat real. I like the guerrilla-style videography on some shots as it gives you the perspective like you are really there.

You’re better off catching this on a rent in which you didn’t pay for.