Before you hear me give my thoughts on this movie, let me just talk about my experience going to this movie. The night was cold and I had no jacket so I was becoming cold and slightly cranky. I walk into the theater and I see that the previews are still going, so I didn't miss the actual movie, which made me a happy, I like the previews. They kind of give you something to hope for if the movie you happen to see sucks. But then, they, walk in. A group of black girls from age 15-17, who would not, shut, the FUCK UP. They just kept talking, and talking and TALKING. Why would you go to a movie and be total bitches about it. Be respectful by being quiet. What's so hard about that?
Anyway, the movie I saw was Paranormal Activity 2, a prequel to the movie that came out in 2009. The story is somewhat similar to the first, but instead of a couple, we get a family, the Rey's, who just had a new born baby boy, named Hunter, enter their flock. And what connection does the Rey family have with Micah and Katie, the couple from the first movie, well Kristi (the step mom) is sisters with Katie, and since we all know what happened to Katie in Paranormal Activity, we kind of know what will happen to Kristi and the rest of the Rey's. The movie first starts out with the Rey's house being burglarized and torn apart by unknown assailants, Dan Rey (aka Dad) installs security cameras throughout the house to prevent any future home invasions. And here we get the key difference between this movie and the first movie. The security cameras show all the strange happenings in a larger area rather to just the confines of Micah and Katie's bedroom. We do get some amateur camera work from either the oldest daughter Ali or by whoever else is holding a portable digital camera. Both points of view from the handheld camera and security camera are spread out evenly and we don't just get one or the other, so its pretty nice to mix it up here and there.
The story progresses pretty similar to the firsts, where it gives us certain days of this "investigation" and on what happen to the victims. There is one scene where Micah shows up the first time in the movie and we get a little subtitle saying, "This was shot 60 days before the death of Micah....." Do we even get a last name for him? Is he like Cher, or Madonna, where he only has the first name? Well anyway, this is shown to help us try and establish a time frame between the first movie and this one, which I was still kind of confused on, but it didn't bug me as much. We also get some insight on what may have caused all this demon business when Ali goes digging on the family history on Kristi's side of the family, and it turns out that Kristi's great-great grandmother may have made a deal of some kind for wealth and for payment, they must give up their first-born male child. OH! That explains everything.....I guess. I don't know, we've all heard this kind of tale before so it works in this setting.
The things I liked about the movie are pretty much what I liked about the first one. The "Blair Witch" cinematography is used well and since it uses the security camera footage to show stuff going around the house, they, in a way, changed it up, but only by small fraction. The use was used very well. The auditorium felt like it was vibrating, very low but still haunting, at times when the "demon" was around the house. Finally, I actually cared about the family that was being terrorized, I wanted them to overcome this but it seemed like no matter what they did they couldn't. The ending however, I'm up in the air on. It wasn't necessarily bad, but it could have been a lot better. All I'll say about is that it did tie in the two movies together, in my opinion though they could have done a slightly better job.
This movie came out in the middle of October and a week before Saw 3D, and between the two, I'd say this one was the real Halloween movie to watch. The story wasn't bad but you still get chills from little things moving to a huge jump scare. If you get a chance go see it in a big auditorium where you can get engulfed by the sounds, or if you want to wait to see it on DVD, see it in the dark by yourself, and see how long you can last.
MY RATING - 8/10
I liked the movie to the degree that it mostly explained the first movie. It was enough startling surprise to keep me going and enough backstory to make me feel like I was involved. Overall it was the ultimate supplement to a movie made mostly for the initial profit.
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