Whilst I am no longer doing the 1000 film challenge (I made it to March and watched around 250 films - in the end my tally was about 800 by the end of the year), as 2014 is coming to a close, I have decided to review the films that have been released this year, and I am starting this today with my review of Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones.
Following the success of the first Paranormal Activity, the franchise continues to churn out a selection of films that are neither scary or, dare I say it, "fresh". When the first film was released - initially via a film festival in 2007 (later released via cinema with a new ending and added "scarier" elements), it felt like a breathe of fresh air, and was if someone was attempting to re-invent the horror genre (much like Wes Craven did with the seminal Scream back in 1996). Made on a shoestring budget in his own apartment, Oren Peli managed to scare the pants of much of the worlds population with some cheap special effects and a plausible - if somewhat over-the-top plot - storyline.
I was a fan of the original, but the 2007 version rather than the cinema release in 2009. At the time, I was living in a haunted house and was getting used to the sights, sounds and experiences that occurred. I watched the first film on a whim and was taken in by how creepy and unnerving it was. For those of you that haven't seen it, the original film was not intended to be part of a franchise in any way, as the original ending had Katie slit her throat in front of the camera. A version was then released that provided an alternative ending of Katie being shot by police following the murder - and subsequent discovery of - her partner Micah. However, sensing additional money, the studio tacked on an ending that left it open for further films, which in my view diluted everything to come.
However, we come to the latest of the Paranormal Activity franchise (at least before Paranormal Activity 5 - The Ghost Dimension is released in March 2015), this being one that was hinted at in the theatrical version of Paranormal Activity 4, in which a group of Spanish speaking men entered a mysterious witchcraft store. This is essentially the Latino entry into the series.
The summary for Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones (courtesy of IMDB.com) is as follows:
"Jesse begins experiencing a number of disturbing and unexplainable things after the death of his neighbor. As he investigates, it isn't long before Jessie finds he's been marked for possession by a malevolent demonic entity, and it's only a matter of time before he is completely under its control..."
PLEASE NOTE THAT FROM THIS POINT, THIS REVIEW WILL PROVIDE SPOILERS!!!
The film introduces us to Jessie, his schoolmate Hector, and their friend Marisol, all three being Latino-American teenagers from Oxnard California, who have just recently graduated high school. Purchasing a second-hand video camera - essentially to showcase what little skateboarding skills they have - Jessie becomes fearful of Ana, a so-called witch who lives in the apartment where Jessie, his father, and grandmother, all reside. One night, Jessie notices police and paramedics in his apartment building taking Ana's dead body out. Having noted his former schoolmate Oscar fleeing from the scene, Jessie ropes his friends into breaking into Ana's apartment to determine what happened.
First off, why the hell would you feel you have to do that? Jessie did not know Ana personally, he never spoke to her and he appeared to just consider her a crazy old bint. Any sane normal person would think that the murder of an individual they didn't know was a shame, but they wouldn't take it upon themselves to break into the murder scene to investigate it further. Granted, Jessie believed that Oscar was to blame, but he wasn't a close friend, so why decide to try and find out if Oscar was to blame? I know it's for story purposes, but surely the writers could have come up with a better way to connect the two?
It's at this point that, after breaking into the deceased's apartment, they find an altar dedicated to black magic, and pictures of Jessie, as well as those missing VHS tapes of Kristi & Katie that were mentioned in Paranormal Activity 3 (seems that Latino witches were to blame, who would have figured that out watching the third part of the franchise?). Being somewhat dumb and curious, they decide to take the spell book which - and this is a big plot point - allows travel through temporal doorways to other dimensions and places of an unholy nature. Lets just take a moment though to discuss that, despite not knowing the woman but knowing she may have been a witch, Jessie was not that freaked out that his picture was on a frickin' altar dedicated to black magic?
Wait a minute, this is a horror film right? That allows for such a lack of modern logic. Whilst it may help to advance the story, I just feel that it treats viewers like absolute garbage. But then again, it was written for a mainly American audience, and we all know that they need things to be pretty much spelled out for them to appreciate and understand it. Anyhoo, these complete tits of teens take the spell book to their local closed church, and attempt to create a temporary portal to another realm. This leads to quite possibly the best execution of haunting terror, the banging of doors, the unknown in the darkness, though it does lose a bit of the magic by staging this in the church toilet.
Then comes the least effective bit of product placement, the Simon Says machine! I wonder if the makers of this "game" - that the majority of people of my generation had - were expecting an up-sell of this around the holiday time? Surely kids and parents would want a machine that they believe the dead can communicate through? That's right, Simon Says is the 2010's equivalent of a ouija board. Rather than getting freaked out, the Latino morons decide to play with the Demon (let's call him Dave for now), which is your standard horror cliché - you think its friendly but it has ulterior motives. By this point, I want them all to die anyway.
Another horror cliché then rears its head, with the bite mark that just appears out of nowhere. At this point, anyone who had watched the first film would know what this spells - death or possession. Seeing as this film is about being "marked", it's not hard to note that possession is on the cards, but how it happens is just moronic.
Firstly, Jessie realises he has superhuman powers (such as the ability to fly and the ability to attack anyone without touching them), yet no-one else finds this weird? Really, are all movie-goers or horror writers blind to the fact that, if you see a human being fly without the need of any apparatus, you may want to point that out to someone...then again, this was mainly seen by American teenagers who believe vampires sparkle (don't get me started on that one).
Upon meeting Oscar (who has strangely black eyes yet no-one seems to really pay attention to that point), Jessie is told to basically kill himself before he kills others (a great line from American Werewolf in London, shamefully ripped off for this film), before Oscar jumps off a building. This makes him investigate a hidden room in the dead witch's apartment (why anyone would go back is beyond me, but then again I'm a 35 year old English male and not as easily swayed as a 15 year old teenage girl). He finds photos of himself, Oscar, and Jessie's mum with the crazy old grandmother of Katie from the first film. Then he hears his dog in the hidden room, and has to get it (despite the fact that he kills it (off-screen of course) along with his grandmother not long after). At that point, he hears some stuff and then see this:
Seriously? They chose to use the two kids from Paranormal Activity 3. Except it's not the same kids. They're different actors. Neither looks like the kids in the third film. Plus, one of them is smiling in a non-creepy way. Sure they have black eyes, but is this all it takes for American audiences to scream in terror? Then cue the invisible entity that briefly makes a dark shape appearance. Then Jessie screams like a girl and falls over. That's it. Off-screen possession. The special effects budget must have been small.
Once possessed, how does he handle the power? He simply tells his friend Hector he doesn't want to be friends any more. Proper pinky swear break up. Hector loves him too much to let him go though, so he contacts a Demon expert, well, the kid from Paranormal Activity 2. She explains how Jessie is a demon, and seems to know exactly when the next demonic ritual will be. Before that, they witness Jessie doing the Riverdance in his front room before disappearing into a ball of light.
Despite him disappearing, no-one thinks otherwise and everyone (including the stereotypical gangbanger Latino gangster) decides to stop this ritual that just happens to be happening right then. At this point, people are killed either by witches, or by disappearing into thin air and emerging dead. To get away, Hector goes through a door that leads him straight into Katie and Michah's apartment, which prompts the screams Katie made in the first film. Micah tries to protect Katie but she ends up stabbing him to death anyway, whilst Hector runs into a human fish...well, Jessie in demonic makeup (he looks like a fish boy).
Is he screaming, or is he laughing or what? Looks like a bad case of herpes to me. And that's pretty much the end of the film (aside from the camera being switched off). And I felt afterwards that I will never get the time back that I spent watching this. Anyone got a spellbook to open some temporal rift to allow for time travel, or at least access to a delorean?
Whilst this franchise is still going strong (thanks to American audiences), I find the whole found footage genre mixed with "horror" to be old hat (I would only consider Blair Witch Project, the first Paranormal Activity & Chronicle to be the only good highlights). The film highlights so many plot inconsistencies and stupidity from it's characters, but it does answer questions that fans of the franchise had - such as what Katie was screaming at, and where the videotapes went, and it did link back well to the first film. However, aside from one or two good moments, there wasn't enough to keep me entertained., and I was bored for the majority of its run time.
My verdict on Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones is simply this, Boreanormally Marked Turds. It's a dud, a stinker, but it will flush quickly only for another one to turn up. How hard is it to actually make a good decent horror film for the non-teen market, as we aren't as dumb as them.
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