Paranormal Activity 2

After Paranormal Activity became one of the most profitable movies ever made, a sequel and an attempt at franchise creation was inevitable, and so Paranormal Activity 2 is the result. The only surprises are that the film’s a prequel and one which stays surprisingly close to the original, even featuring the couple from the first film as characters, which serves to remind us of and create the same creeping terror, avoiding the atrocious fate of Blair Witch 2 and all too many other awful horror sequels.

PA2 starts with a quiet and well off family’s home being vandalised mysteriously at night, leading the patriarch to do what any good father would: rig the entire house with cameras. Inevitably, they film the subsequent nightmare of strange moving objects that follows, in a way that’s virtually identical to the original, leading to the key problem that it quite simply adds nothing new. Although the concept of found footage may originate in the horrific animal cruelty filled nightmare of Cannibal Holocaust, the original succeeded in bringing something new to the table by essentially setting a very subtle psychological horror similar in many respects to Blair Witch, as going into the victim’s house created a supernatural home invasion and not simply a case of getting lost in the woods. Perhaps the prequel’s one attempt at originality is the demon being visible to the family’s dog and toddler, but this fails to add anything to the proceedings. The other change is the use multiple and various types of camera that has the negative effect of making it lose credibility as found footage and much of the creeping dread of the original, particularly as it feels like we have seen it before, and if you’ve seen the original, you’ll be able to predict almost all the mysterious events.

Yet perhaps what really damages the film are its characters. The original was essentially a two hander, with the growing tensions between the couple providing much of the dramatic effect. Here, this vanishes – with a much larger cast of characters, they lose their intimacy and the film lacks the arguing and character development that worked so well before, and so it’s hard to become absorbed and intrigued by the goings-on in the house. Yet perhaps the biggest mistake is that PA2 reveals exactly what the entity wants and the answer is rather disappointing and cliché. Without its apparently strange fixations and unknowable nature, it ceases to be an interesting threat and fails to impress.

Paranormal Activity 2 is not a terrible film and there are a couple of shock moments, but only after the first hour bored the audience into a semi stupor. Due to its repeated elements, and the lack of interesting characters or plot developments, it’s unable to maintain interest, particularly considering it has removed much of what made the antagonist so disturbing and interesting by eliminating the sense of mystery surrounding it.

See Paranormal Activity 2 at City Screen. Click here for times and further information.

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