In an attempt to revive a franchise that’s seen better days, writer of all the Paranormal Activity films except the first, Christopher Landon, steps into the director’s role for the first time on these films with the franchise’s first spin-off feature, Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones.
Set in a Latino community, Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones chronicles the lives of friends Jesse (Andrew Jacobs) and Hector (Jorge Diaz) as they both play with some new handheld cameras. When really cool but also disturbing things start happening to Jesse post the death of his classmate, the two discover that Jesse has been marked for possession and that it is only a matter of time before the demon completely takes control of Jesse.
Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones is a refreshing and necessary breath of fresh air into a franchise that’s clearly started to go stale, regardless if each one still manages to creep me the hell out. There’s only so much of the same formula that an audience can handle especially when the mythology evolves very slowly. With The Marked Ones, we get a change of pace not only with the culture of the lead characters, but the film’s camerawork which relies solely on handheld video rather than a mixture of security cameras or other fixed cameras. This change in camerawork also makes it more personal and brings it back to the traditional idea of found footage.
As typical with nearly every Paranormal Activity film, the male leads are hilarious and the first 30 minutes of this 84 min. film generate a ton of laughs and it becomes impossible not to like the characters. We know in the back of our mind someone is going to be possessed and when we find out who it is director/writer Christopher Landon takes a comic twist on the possession before injecting the unfortunate and inevitable horror into the film. Even when there are horrific moments he manages to find a way to get the audience to laugh in the middle of the suspension which surprisingly doesn’t always break the intensity but rather prepares us for a crazy twist that nobody sees coming. This twist is probably the most brilliant part of this semi-effective film.
The Marked Ones certainly has its flaws but the one issue that stood out to me was that even though this was a found footage film it didn’t have subtitles for when the characters spoke Spanish. I was able to understand and piece together bits here and there and was thankful when one character would occasionally translate what another would say but since it isn’t just going to be a Spanish speaking audience checking this film out it bothered me that they neglected to include subtitles. I can understand how it made sense not to include them but I selfishly wish they had for my sake and for the many people around the globe who don’t speak Spanish at all (not all Italian translates perfectly from Spanish).
The real main issue I had with the film is that it isn’t a very scary film. Yes, there is two or three solid jump out of your seat moments and the film does manage to creep you out from time to time but the film doesn’t terrorize like the first and even second films do. In this one there is a relationship that has formed between the demon and its marked target, Jesse, which makes it a more interesting story to follow but decreases the number of scares since you know and are constantly expecting something to happen when Jessie’s around. This becomes even more true when you realize that they eliminated that deep bass that traditionally has signified something is coming which always amps up the tension and when I begin to start sweating.
I’m glad to see the Paranormal Activity team and Paramount do something different with this franchise and I think it was a smart move pushing Paranormal Activity 5 to this year, allowing Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones to screen for audiences beforehand. It breaks up the series a little bit, introducing new characters to us and a very different mythology that the Latin culture is actually familiar with, so in that regard, the film is good. In all other aspects of the film, this is a mediocre at best horror that fans of the series will likely find entertaining but for people that hate the franchise, well, you’re going to hate this too. The film isn’t scary enough to make you afraid to go to sleep that night and I think that’s what we all want when we see a movie like this.
Rating: A fresh take on a franchise going stale, the film delivers more laughs than heart pounding scares (4.9/10)
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