Thursday, January 27, 2011

Paranormal Activity 2

The prequel to one of the scariest horrors of the Noughties.

When the first Paranormal Activty came out in 2009, this blog professed its outmost admiration.

There was a horror film that did what it said on the tin. A slow and relentless build-up which resulted in tons of suspense without relying on monsters, zombies or any sort of camera trick. I obviously speak for myself, but when I watched it, it really freaked me out, which I guess is what a film called Paranormal Activity should be doing in the first place.

One year down the line, and its follow-up came out in the guise of a prequel.

The formula is still the same, except that the story is now centred around Kate's sister's family and a series of spooky events in the weeks prior to what happened in the first film.

There are both a different director (Tod Williams) and writer (Michael R. Perry), but you wouldn't have noticed, given that the same minimalistic touches and meticulous attention to the build-up are applied this time as well.

In short, still very scary, except that this time you more or less already know what to expect, which detracts a little from the tension and the anticipation.

However, if you did miss the first one, this is likely to make you jump big time nonetheless.

The bad news is that a third instalment has already been commissioned for October 2011. As it's very difficult to see where the story can go any further without trivialising it in the style of Saw (now likely to be in its 22nd incarnation) or Final Destination (except that it's never final), one could be forgiven for their scepticism.

Paranormal Activity 2 is released on DVD on Feb 8, 2011.

1 comment:

Daniel Hoffmann-Gill said...

The first one was awful, terrible movie, I will be avoiding this one.