Tag: Micah Sloat

video review : Paranormal Activity : The Marked Ones

video review : Paranormal Activity : The Marked Ones

This is Paranormal Activity 5. The decision to omit the “5” and give it a subtitle was a stupid one that not only causes confusion but basically ruins the consistency of the series. Not that it wasn’t already stupid. Paranormal Activity should’ve ended after the first one. Making more has less to do with art than money and it shows. This is, in a lot of ways, the same story being told over and over again. It’s a decent story usually; 2 is notably worse than the rest; but essentially the same nonetheless.

This time the camera focuses on a recent high school graduate named Jesse. His best friend Hector is the one with the camera and he seems to have it on constantly, as if he knows he’s shooting a real movie. They also have a friend named Marisol. The three serve as amatuer investigators when spooky things start happening around Jesse’s apartment. It begins with the death of the weirdo downstairs neighbor. By the end, people are screaming and running for their lives as the camera shoots on.

my rating : 3 of 5

2014

video review : Paranormal Activity : The Ghost Dimension
video review : Paranormal Activity : Next Of Kin

video review : Paranormal Activity 2

video review : Paranormal Activity 2

The best thing about this movie is the baby boy. He’s cute and endearing, as babies often are. But his precious presence is wasted because the movie is pointless. It’s a very unneccesary sequel to a movie that wasn’t even that interesting in the first place, let alone scary. And even if you think the first set of Paranormal Activity was scary, how likely are you to fall for the same tricks?

Everything but the ending takes place before that first one, so it’s actually a prequel of sorts; a backstory to tell us more about Katie and the demon that’s been harassing her since she was eight years old. It does that via more home video footage; this time from a surveillance system installed in the home of Katie’s sister, Kristi, after what appears to be some kind of random home invasion.

Kristi; who shares the house with her husband, his daughter from a previous marriage and their newborn son; come home one day to discover that, with the exception of the baby’s room, the house has been ransacked. But there doesn’t seem to be anything missing. It isn’t until after they install the cameras that the probability of robbers is virtually eliminated and things start to get creepy.

That’s creepy for them, not necessarily for us. Weird noises come out of nowhere and objects appear to move by themselves, but it’s never particularly scary to watch on camera; even when it becomes obvious that there’s something supernatural going on. When you ponder the suggested cause, which revolves around some folklore the daughter reads on the internet, it’s actually quite silly.

my rating : 2 of 5

2010

video review : Paranormal Activity 3
video review : Paranormal Activity 4
video review : Paranormal Activity : The Marked Ones
video review : Paranormal Activity : The Ghost Dimension
video review : Paranormal Activity : Next Of Kin

video review : Paranormal Activity

video review : Paranormal Activity

A fictional video experiment presented as a real one, à la The Blair Witch Project, is only scary if you subscribe to its ideology. If you believe there really is a such thing as ghosts and demons, I imagine the realism of this movie; enhanced by improvised character dialogue and the fact that the perspective never leaves that of the camera that is supposed to be capturing it all; will create quite a creepy experience for you. If you don’t believe, the whole thing might seem sort of silly.

I don’t believe, but I don’t think that’s ever stopped me from enjoying a supernatural horror flick before. The difference here is that, stripped of traditional scare tactics or even non-diegetic background music, the flick relies on not much more than the notion that the underlyng concept is real in order to be effective. That leaves a lot of mere observation; watching the people interact while waiting for something truly uncanny to happen; where there should be dreadful tension.

The sound of footsteps coming up the stairs or a knock on the bedroom door when no one else should be in the house doesn’t do it for me. For all I know, that could be a human intruder trying to scare people. So I think the two main characters, and the “psychic” they call to help get rid of their problem, are too quick to jump to supernatural conclusions. Even when it becomes evident that something weird really is going on, you still can’t rule-out the two main characters as the culprit.

Their names are Micah S and Katie F. They are a girlfriend and boyfriend that are “engaged to be engaged”. They live together in a house in San Diego; a house that’s, for lack of a better term, haunted… because this “demon”, who Katie claims has been in her life since she was eight years old, supposedly follows her wherever she moves to. That skepticism goes a long way, becoming less and less so until the end, where things start to get really creepy. By then it’s a little too late.

my rating : 3 of 5

2007

video review : Paranormal Activity 2
video review : Paranormal Activity 3
video review : Paranormal Activity 4
video review : Paranormal Activity : The Marked Ones
video review : Paranormal Activity : The Ghost Dimension
video review : Paranormal Activity : Next Of Kin