Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones

Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones

Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones is a supernatural horror film starring Andrew Jacobs, Jorge Diaz and Gabrielle Walsh. The film is directed by Christopher B. Landon who wrote the movie Disturbia and the last three Paranormal Activity movies.

As per usual, the film follows the whole found footage format just like the other Paranormal Activity movies and has become a staple format in horror movies these days.

In this film we follow the antics of recent high school graduate Jesse and his two friends. Jesse lives in an apartment with his father and grandmother. Below them lives an old lady whom everyone believes is a witch.

Now as you would imagine, Jesse and his friends try sneak into the old woman’s apartment and of course discover all sorts of strange things. This somehow leads Jesse to be possessed by an entity which seems to protect him at first. This entity is of course the same malevolent being that appears in all the films which has fondly been named Toby in Paranormal Activity 3.

But of course this is a horror and Toby is no guardian angel. So as you would have guessed by now, strange things begin to happen to Jesse and his friends and it’s up to them to find out what it is and how to stop it.

What I didn’t like about this film:

This is of course another unnecessary Paranormal Activity movie and it didn’t need a franchise. The first movie was the best and by far the scariest. As it possessed the right amount of tension and of course it had that air of mystery as the audience had no clue what was happening and what would happen next. But as things go in Hollywood, when a movie is a success, studios try and cash in on that success and spew out as many sequels as possible which dilutes the entire franchise.

Another problem is the whole entity. It should have remained unknown and mysterious, but it was given a backstory which became clearer in the third film and is revealed to be a manifestation conjured up by a coven of witches and this kind of gives franchise a stale, predictable feel.

What I did like about this film:

Although it is the fifth in the franchise, it is way better than Paranormal Activity 4 which was just a really dull movie. What made this film feel fresh was the fact that the film makers decided to focus on a Latino family rather than your typical suburban American family as it had in the past. There is also a decent balance of humour as well as tension in this movie and a few guaranteed jumps which is really needed in an aging franchise. The best part of this film is it does get the audience involved by using a clichéd technique of having the character wondering into dark corners and you are yelling at your screen telling him to stay away.

As I mentioned with the tension, this film can be seen on par with Paranormal Activity 3 as this is just as tense and really has its scary moments, which does make it a stronger movie in the whole franchise.

So with that, Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones gets a frightening 6 out of 10

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