![]() ![]() ![]() It doesn't take long before we realize that we're in Katie's house right before she kills Micah. Scared for his life, Hector (Jorge Diaz) runs inside a closet before emerging on the other side in a completely different location. ![]() The lead characters of "The Marked Ones" end up at the grandmother's home and are attacked by the members of the demon cult. But it doesn't matter because the possessed Katie comes back and kills Kristi and her husband before leaving with Hunter into the night. Therefore, the events of the first "Paranormal Activity" are set into motion. In the second film, however, it's revealed that because Kristi gave birth to Hunter, she is the focus of the demonic haunting, and the only way to get rid of "Tobi" is to pass it on to Katie. Had "Paranormal Activity" been a one-and-done experience, the most we would have gathered is that this entity that's haunting Katie would have been targeting her alone. In the second film, Kristi gives birth to Hunter (Jackson Xenia Prieto), who turns out to be the first male born into the family in ages. The basic gist of the first trilogy is that when they were younger, Katie and Kristi were unknowingly inducted into a cult by their grandmother, who offered them both to "Tobi" at a young age to eventually provide him with a male heir to inhabit his body. And then you have "Paranormal Activity 3," which goes all the way back to 1988 to show Katie and Kristi's childhood, when the hauntings first began. "Paranormal Activity 2" came as a surprise because it slowly revealed itself to be a prequel, focused on Katie's sister Kristi (Sprague Grayden) and her family, before showing what happened to Katie after the events of the first film. There are worse found-footage movies out there, but The Marked Ones is definitely one you can skip over.The fact that "Paranormal Activity" was able to keep things running that long, before truly falling flat on its face with a lazy attempt at 3-D found footage ( "Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension"), is kind of impressive. You just want these stupid jump scares to stop so you can go about your life not watching this movie. Near the end I was just waiting for it to be over because you know there's not going to be any explanation or any depth to the story at that point. It just got really uninteresting really fast. I won't say it's terrible because I didn't hate myself watching it. It basically went from being an intriguing murder mystery to a generic possession movie. ![]() And that's how the entire third act feels: rushed and lazy. Let's just make a bunch of supernatural crap happen to these characters we developed and wrap this up as quickly as possible". It's like halfway through the movie the filmmakers were like "oh crap, this has to be a Paranormal Activity movie. Easy jump scares, stupid mythology that isn't even explained and makes no sense, people running around from room to room with no suspense. I liked the characters, I thought the filmmakers were doing something interesting and fresh, there are some comedic bits thrown around, it was just enjoyable to watch. The first 30 or so minutes I was invested in the movie. It's the same premise though - found-footage, teenagers, ghosts, demons, and what have you. I've only seen the first Paranormal Activity so I'm reviewing this as a standalone movie, even though it's actually a spin off or whatever. ![]()
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