Paranormal Activity 2-little?

As anybody who knows me will tell you, I am massive fan of horror films in all forms. I own the entire Halloween collection (all 9 of them), the Scream Trilogy, both of the Grudges, and numerous other old classics (such as the original "Wicker Man" and "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre") and modern-day gorefests (such as the updated "Second House On The Left" and the re-write of "The Amityville Horror").

I wrote this review back at the start of November, before I had started Twenty-one and Invincible and simply hadn't got round to including it - but as the online Horror fanzine that was supposed to publish it has failed to do so, I thought it may as well get some press on here. Enjoy!

Paranormal Activity 2-little?

That’s right, it’s finally here. The long-awaited prequel to the hugely successful Paranormal Activity of 2009 has finally crept onto our screens this October, and is in prime position to be the Halloween horror film of the year.

The film has been portrayed as a prequel to the original, depicting the ghostly goings-on of the previous two months before the first film is set. This time, the action is centred in the home of Kristi Rey – the sister of Katie from the first film.

A “burglary” occurs at the home of Kristi, her husband Dan and his daughter from his first marriage, Ali. Kristi has not long bought their new baby Hunter home from the hospital, and his is the only room in the house left untouched after the supposed break-in. Nothing has been stolen except a necklace given to Kristi by her sister Katie, but the whole house has been trashed.

Following the good-old premise of “caught on camera”, the Rey family decide to install security cameras throughout their house to make them feel safer, and this is where the supernatural fun really begins. It starts with simple objects going missing, or moving places seemingly by themselves. There are a few bumps in the night, loud noises which come from nowhere and at one point – in broad daylight and right in front of Kristi’s eyes – all the kitchen cupboards burst open and the contents go flying across the room.

We begin to see dark figures appear on the cameras and the violence starts to increase; Abby the dog is violently attacked by an unseen being and suffers a seizure. Whilst Ali and Dan are at the vets with the poor pooch, Kristi is left at home with baby Hunter. The lights begin to flicker in the baby’s room, and when Kristi goes to investigate she is dragged to the floor and pulled, screaming, down the stairs and into the basement by an unseen force – where she remains for hours until she emerges obviously possessed.

So follows a dramatic turn of events, where husband Dan and step-daughter Ali watch the CCTV footage of the night before and, seeing the violent paranormal attack Kristi has suffered, call in the help of their ex-nanny Martine, who insists evil spirits are to blame and gives Dan a cross with which to exercise the demon possessing his wife and help to pass it on to another blood relative.

After a violent fight to exercise his wife’s demons, Dan begins to put the family home back together, and for the next few weeks the family live in peace – but then Katie comes to visit, complaining of strange goings on in her house. This is where the two films start to overlap, and the film skips to the night after Katie’s boyfriend Micah is murdered, where we find Katie is staying at her sister’s home in the wake of his death.

This is where the whole film starts to spiral out of control and falls into being a load of overly-dramatic nonsense, as a suddenly possessed Katie first kills a sleeping Dan, and then throws her sister Kristi against the wall, before snatching baby Hunter and disappearing into the night. End of film.

Despite the first film’s brilliant set-up and electrifying atmosphere, the second film just does not live up to its parallel counterpart. There are plenty of jump-out-of-your-skin moments which save this prequel from becoming a total disaster, but the randomness of the storyline and lack of clarity towards the end really spoils it.

Paranormal Activity 2 appears to have been directed as somewhat of an explanation for the goings-on in the first film, but seriously fails to live up to this, as you are left more confused than you were before you watched it. It is also lacking the suspense and intense atmosphere you will have enjoyed so much with the first film.

Not a bad film overall, and it does have its redeeming qualities, but not a patch on the first film unfortunately. Hopefully the eagerly anticipated Paranormal Activity 3 will go some way to explaining the situation fully, and bring back the edge-of-your-set tension of the original.

Star rating: 3/5