Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones

If you have watched the films prior you kind of got used to certain characters, but for this one, it took it in a new direction where they could literally expand it to anything near enough. It's a good film, just something was missing to give it that top mark.

When the news of a new entry in the series came to my attention, the idea exhausted me; especially given the previous entries and their deteriorating quality. Nevertheless staying true to the reason these films are still being made, and fans of real horror, like myself continue to watch them, Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones, rewards its loyal audience with a fairly sensible connection with the previous films and characters.

In a way, the film does show some maturity, and they seem to have graduated from chicken feet on the floor and utensils and sheets flying around the place...at least for the most part. Here to begin with the lead character, Jesse was given just enough footage to get the audience to like him. We begin to instantly empathize with his family and friends and unlike the previous movies, none of them are extremely annoying. The actors, all do justice to their parts, and if not extremely strong performances, are convincing enough to keep us watching

This entry does give the audience more action than the prequels, however they divert themselves into satanic rituals, rather than pay any focus to the actual demon they are to be dealing with. There are just enough scares to justify one watch, and enough back story to make sense of a few huge question marks the previous films leave us with.

With the exception of these, the film has not much else to offer, and it is best to be watched as a part of this series and not compared to several of the other strong demonic possession films we've had in the past few years.

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. It's the same premise though - found-footage, teenagers, ghosts, demons, and what have you.

The first 30 or so minutes I was invested in the movie. I really was. 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. Then it turns into cliché city. Easy jump scares, stupid mythology that isn't even explained and makes no sense, people running around from room to room with no suspense. It's like halfway through the movie the filmmakers were like "oh crap, this has to be a Paranormal Activity movie. Let's just make a bunch of supernatural crap happen to these characters we developed and wrap this up as quickly as possible". And that's how the entire third act feels: rushed and lazy. It basically went from being an intriguing murder mystery to a generic possession movie.

I won't say it's terrible because I didn't hate myself watching it. It just got really uninteresting really fast. 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. You just want these stupid jump scares to stop so you can go about your life not watching this movie. There are worse found-footage movies out there, but The Marked Ones is definitely one you can skip over.

After the abomination that was PA4, I was pleasantly surprised by this movie. Sure, it's your standard possession story, but I found it believable and reasonably well acted. The young guys were easy to like and their friendship really came through on-screen. It also had some great scary/eerie moments. All in all, I think the PA franchise has pulled itself back on track with this one. Definitely worth watching!

The Marked ones is without doubt one of the best films from the Franchise (first one apart.) It's the usual format, every stereotype included, kids, found footage, person turned away, being on top of the ceiling, but somehow this one has an air of originality about it. Unlike the last few films the character's are well rounded and for the first time likeable, so when things start happening to them you care. There's nothing particularly original here, the ending has definitely been done to death, but it doesn't seem to matter. Not bad at all.