Paranormal Activity 2…Better Than The First

This movie starts out as expected. We meet Kristi and her husband Dan, his daughter Ali, and their newborn son Hunter. We get the tour of the house, including the nursery. Things go on as expected. Then our old friend Katie from Paranormal Activity and her boyfriend Micah come over for a day. It turns out that Kate and Kristi are sisters, and this footage starts 60 days before Micah meets his untimely end in Paranormal Activity. It’s not disturbing to learn that these women are sisters. What is disturbing is learning that this movie is more of a prequel than a sequel of PA. I know that seems odd, me complaining about that. To be honest, I paid more attention to some of the creepy security camera footage.

That being said, the real action happens shortly after one of the sisters finds an old photo of Katie as a child, believed to have been destroyed in a mysterious fire years ago. I will not be divulging all the weird things to begin to happen. I will say that there were many scenes that had me jumping, and it was so nice to know that I was not the only one in the packed theater that felt like that. I will go on to say that there were a few grown men and more than a handful of women who verbally let everyone know how freaked out they were.

Kristi had some traumatic experiences as a child. They were so traumatic that she buried her memories for years and years. Actually, she has no memory of anything that happened. But her sister Katie does. She remembers everything. Before Katie comes to visit, somebody breaks into Kristi’s house and steals a necklace that Katie gave her. The whole house is completely trashed, except for the nursery. Life goes on and days pass, only Dan has decided to have security cameras installed inside and outside of the house. Strange, unsettling things start happening. Noises are heard, items are moved or fall. The list goes on. But I find the most unsettling things have to do with Hunter. I admit that I am more than creeped out by what happens in the nursery, around that poor baby boy.

Things also happen to him and that really raised my hackles. It seemed as if he was being singled out. I do find it odd that the father of the family, the man who is supposed to protect his family, does not review the tapes but for a few times. It seems to me that he should have watched every bit of footage any chance he got. He might have discovered sooner that all was not right in his home.

Horrible and scary things happen to Kristi, in much the same manner that they happened to her sister Katie in the first film. She seems different. She goes into an almost trance-like state for days. When she finally emerges, there is something very wrong with her. I think that Sprague Grayden did a good job with the whole possession acting sequence. She was believable as Katie’s sister and Hunter’s mom.

On a different note…

I have a bone to pick, and not literally. For those of you who did not like Paranormal Activity, then why in the world did you spend money to see the sequel? I am tired of reading review after review of this movie had overused tricks or that possessed girl was not believable. Seriously, people. Paranormal Activity 2 was a movie made for fans of the first film. That much is obvious. It was also a movie made to show Hollywood that you don’t have to star house name stars or spends millions and millions of dollars to make a hit movie. The best effects come from within. The mind is a powerful machine. It picks up on the creepy, inhuman noises coming from the basement. It notices that the shadowy figure is coming closer to the intended victim. And the people behind PA and PA2 know this. They know that you don’t have to use expensive special effects to scare an audience. What you do need is an audience that is willing to be scared, not the average everyday skeptic that dares you to prove them right. You appeal to the people, who are looking for something that makes the hairs on the back of their neck rise. You want to scare the people who, after seeing a horror movie, check under the bed and in the backseat.

Two things that made this movie work are not things, but people. Sprague Grayden who played Kristi did a great job playing the concerned mom, frustrated wife, and possessed maternal figure. I had to put that last part in. If you did see the first movie, that introduced Katie and Micah, then you know that something paranormal has to occur. And occur it does. I already mentioned the possession. I didn’t mention the weird noises. I didn’t bring up the creepy camera footage of shadows and objects moving or falling. One of the things I liked was the activity that happened not just in the dark. There were a few events that occurred with the lights being on. In PA, most things happened while the couple asleep in bed, and there was only the one camera view. In PA2, a lot more happened all over the house, with multiple cameras.

The second thing that made this movie work would have to be Katie. Katie was not the same, freaky woman who was convinced that her home was under attack from demonic forces. This movie’s Katie is pre-haunting, if you will. This Katie is a concerned sister who comes over to visit with Kristi, who had Hunter some months before. She does not factor into this movie that much, except that something happens at the end of PA2 that makes it more of a sequel than a prequel. And of course a lot of questions are finally answered.

P.S. If you did not like any first movie in a series of sequels, then don’t bother going to see any films that follow that one. You’ll probably waste your money and annoy me to no end with your complaining and whining.



One Response to “Paranormal Activity 2…Better Than The First”

1. Octavio Swayzer says:

   November 26, 2010 at 8:45 pm

   Nice blog you have here, very informative.