Wince, wash, repeat: no end to the Paranormal terror
The filmmakers behind the five-strong Paranormal Activity franchise apparently have the same resolution every new year: Make and release another one. But they slipped in 2013. Although Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones (or PATMO?) was supposed to open in October, it was pushed back, opening only this week. And, as is increasingly common with horror sequels, it was released without advance screenings to scare the critics.
If you’ve seen Paranormals 1 through 4, you know this one involves invisible demons, possession and the trope of found footage, recorded by the characters as they try to work out what the heck is going on. It also features Katie Featherston, most of whose career has played out in the previous four films.
Already there is news that Paranormal Activity 5 is due out this year. To make matters confusing, while The Marked Ones is technically the fifth in the series, it does not carry a number, having been positioned by its makers as a “cousin” to the first four films, which are set in 2006, earlier 2006, 1988 and 2011, respectively. The Marked Ones is apparently set prior to the first movie, but not as far back as the third movie.
Sidestepping this paranormal chronology, let’s instead investigate Paranormals 6, 7 and 8, which sure as Star Wars will open just be- fore Halloween 2015, 2016 and 2017. Paranormal Activity 6: To Hell and App. Just as Paranormal 3 took the story of found footage back to the predigital age, with videotape cameras mounted on oscillating fan bases, P6 imagines a family with more iPads than brains; so when unseen entities start moaning and throwing pots and pans across the kitchen, they set up a Wi-Fi network to track the mysterious happenings. This allows the demons to spawn in the cloud and send some really terrifying spam. Paranormal Activity 7: Through a Google Glass, Darkly. The new wearable computing devices make a debut in this one, bringing found footage to the next level as shaky, point-of-view images drive audiences to new heights of terror and nausea. A 3D Imax version will be pulled from theatres after one night when it’s discovered to induce vomiting. Paranormal Activity 8: Hold That Pose. Searching for a new angle, the filmmakers throw the series back to a time before movies even existed, with photographers staying up all night in haunted bedrooms, trying to capture a frightening moment on silver nitrate emulsion. If the franchise survives intact, plans are afoot for Paranormal Activity 9: Scribes of Horror and Paranormal Activity 10: Cave Paintings of Doom.
Paranormal Activity: The
Marked Ones, if you’re still interested, is now in theatres. See Page E8 for cinemas and screening times.