Paranormal Activity 2
November, 2009, out of nowhere one of the most terrifying films of all time is released. Within a few weeks the world and it’s dog had seen the movie, and most of them were scared to sleep at night. Now Hollywood being what it is, a bunch of idiots with a lot of money and a fetish for ruining good things, decided that something as successful as Paranormal Activity (An estimated $15000 movie, which grossed over $100 million) should be cashed in on. And the general public, who are nothing more than lobotomised walking wallets in the eyes of bug producers, should be milked for all their worth. A point which is completely pointless to make as the sequel has already made over $40 million, but shut up I am trying to make a point here, not sure what that point is but it is somewhere in there. With this in mind along came Halloween 2010 and there was Paranormal Activity 2, with the terrified piss still stained into our trousers the public loosened there wallets and sphincters in anticipation to be scared so senseless they wouldn’t be able to walk, let alone tell people how good it was. Then people started to see the movie a few things happened which shouldn’t have, for one sphincters stayed uncomfortably tight, wallets were uncomfortably loose, and no one was overly terrified.
Now don’t assume the film is terrible because of the opening statements of this review, the film is not awful, nor horrible, in fact it is quite inoffensive as a movie. The first is really held up on three factors – immersion, suspense and what I call dread, in fact the way the original made you dread the sequences at night is what made it so terrifying. When a film makes you truly terrified of what will happen next it has effectively proven that it is immersive and suspenseful and really pretty awesome. The sequel does make a decent attempt at creating suspense, and the slow beginning eventually leading the installation of the CCTV creates a good amount of tension and is a good way to start the build up to the scarier moments of the movie. However the build up can be too slow, for example the when the first night is shown nothing happens, not even something small, which acts as a simple waste of time, as something small (like the sound of footsteps on the first night in the original) works to show the audience that something is happening. Which will grow into what was shown in the trailers. As well as generating a sense of terror in the audience.
Further good points of the film, are that the inclusion of a dog is a good addition to the formula, as seeing a non-human affected by the presence adds an extra dimension as generally people don’t enjoy seeing the quite little pooch get brutalised by an unknown invisible force of evil (oh yeah the pooch gets brutalised by the unknown invisible force of evil). The sequel does also slot nicely with the first, it is set before the events of Paranormal activity and being set around Katey’s sister and her family, and seeing Katey and Micah visit occasionally gives a good sense of foreboding over the entirety of the film, also creating the sense of a connection (initially) between both events allowing the audience to infer that the happenings of the original are more than coincidence. These small good points do carry a certain amount of weight and definitely push the film away from terrible, and actually give the sense that film may be as good as the original however the bad points haven’t begun to build up yet so there is still time for “sequel syndrome” to set in.
To begin with the characters of the film are only mildly likeable, it’s not that no development is attempted, but that there are too many characters and with the style of the film being what it is there is only limited time for any type of development arc to occur. With poorly developed characters comes the inevitable apathy towards them from the audience ultimately detracting from the experience and making the tension and horror less effective.
Another problem with the film is the attempt to develop the debate between rationality and spiritual belief. In the original Micah the argument is shown through the two characters, Katey who wholly believes in the supernatural, and Micah who represents rationality and attempting to find a logical reason for what is going on, this debate is what gave the characters meat on their bones and made them more likeable, Micah being one of this writers most beloved characters of all time. The sequel tries to bring the debate into it through the father and the daughter, however the dialogue around the issue seemed uneasy and forced creating an atmosphere in which you’re never sure if either side truly believes in what they’re saying, and doesn’t believe what the other is saying. While in the original the debate helped create tension as it showed how the nights events affected the break down of the relationship, however with the sequel the debate contributes very little, and simply slows down the pace to a tedious crawl while it is going on, other than that the debate spurs on the biggest problem with this movie.
The biggest problem being that shit gets explained, a why and how is given to the seemingly inexplicable goings on, but the worst thing about this is that by explaining the events of the second movie an explanation is made of the first movie, those paying attention will have just noticed this. YES! Watching Paranormal activity 2 actually manages to make the first film worse, yes worse, by watching this you will never be able to watch the first film in the same way. Now the idea of explaining shit has ruined sequels before, especially horror films, look at The Exorcist 2: Heretic for a perfect example of this. The problem with this is that the explanation (without trying to give too much away) gives the evil a reason to be doing what it is doing, and a human cause. Not only that, the explaining carries on, and proceeds to fuck up the original, which almost made this writer leave cinema out of disgust and sheer hatred for Hollywood.
Now it is about time to conclude and I haven’t even got through half the bad of this film, quickly they consist of ineffective murder scenes, which kind of ruin the ending of the first film, and deduct from the experience of the movie, sparse and inane scripting, a live baby and a pointless Spaniard. Overall I would say that the movie is an unnecessary attempt to cash in of the greatness of the first outing. If you truly loved the original and haven’t seen the sequel yet, just go and watch the first one again, and occasionally throw a dog around, it will probably be better than this film. Those who have already seen it, I apologise on behalf of Hollywood, for being generally evil and hating all of us and everyone involved in independent film making especially. Let us all hope that there is not a third attempt, and pray that 3Ditus hasn’t infected it, and for any big movie/small move/movie producers who happen to be reading this, I request you do a few things for me, grab a hammer or similar large heavy object, then hit yourself in the head until you have a concussion, therefore forgetting that last bit. Then go away and eat the babies you need to survive on.
