Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones (2014)
To kick off October and my own 31 Days of Halloween, here is a review of the horror (because it’s horribly bad) movie Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones.
The Gist
The Marked Ones: Andrew Jacobs (Jesse); Jorge Diaz (Hector); Gabrielle Walsh (Marisol); Carlos Pratts )Oscar); Richard Cabral (Arturo), Gloria Sandaval (Ana)
My Take: This marks the 5th installment in the Paranormal Activity franchise (although I don’t think it is technically consider #5 but whatever) that really should have ended after number 2, although the third one answered questions about the history of the demonic possession that plagues Katie and her family. The fourth one sucked and this one, well, here we go.
Here’s a booby shot just cause
It begins like YouTube footage as the guys do stupid shit – stunts, dancing dogs, fooling around with girls – and here and there we start to see strange things happening but the odd events are very sparse. There is a murder in the apartment of a “witch” in the same complex as the main character, Jesse but I missed a chunk of information about who the people were. I swear I had no idea what the characters names were and who was who for most of the movie. On and on it goes as Jesse begins to display supernatural powers of levitating and being cruel to his dog, not to mention having a bad temper. Some guy named Oscar pops out of the floor boards and I’m not sure who he is either.
After much running shaky cam and gangsters trying to help Marisol and Hector (Jesse’s BFF’s) find Jesse, they end up at house filled with psycho women, and demon Jesse, who go about killing everyone including the shotgun toting gangster, using a knife. Really, a knife took out a badass gangster with a gun. Anyway, our perspective for the last 10ish minutes is via Hector’s camcorder or whatever he is using to film and is still holding after the murder and mayhem. More running ensues until he enters a familiar house looking for help. Hey, that’s Katie looking all dazed, with a knife, yelling for Micah. And here we see how Micah died and poor Hector doesn’t make it to the next movie.
Final Thoughts on The Marked Ones: I’ll keep this brief regarding this flick. Don’t spend money on this movie. The last 10 minutes where we see Katie and Micah and it ties into the rest of the films is the best part. Other than that, there were no scares and the characters were not interesting or engaging.
Thoughts on Paranormal Activity Series: I find it interesting that the movies jump from timeline to timeline. PA 2 is weeks before the events of PA 1; PA 3 is like 20 years earlier; PA 4 is about 7 years after PA 2 and PA 5 is almost simultaneous to PA 1. Confusing? There is timeline drawn between the 5 films and it helps to connect them as PA 4 and PA 5 diverge away from Katie and her family being the focal point of the flicks and we meet new characters who seem to have no place in this storyverse. As far as a movie series, Paranormal Activity doesn’t really work because they just aren’t that good individually. In some ways I think this franchise would have worked better as a TV series or Netflix/streaming series but they don’t warrant theatrical releases. The underlining mythology is interesting which is why I think it could have been better as an episodic series tying in all the timelines and stories. Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension (number 6 and a cheesy name), is due out in 2015. This will be another one to watch on Netflix because yes, I will watch it but I will not pay for it. Overall, Paranormal Activity is the best, Paranormal Activity 2 is decent and rest have short bits that are good to cultivate the story of Katie and the demon.
Dawning Creates 