Landon, the franchise's primary storyteller, is, thankfully, more forthcoming with clues and reveals in The Marked Ones, directly connecting the film to past sequels. From which comes this film's one major flaw: It asks more questions than it answers in regards to what in Toby's name is going on in the PA movies. That conclusion, meanwhile, will most likely be the cause of much criticism towards The Marked Ones, and, if that is the case, it will be more so derived from the Paranormal Activity's altogether muddled mythology than anything Landon executes here. There's a shot of a distorted reflection in a dirtied-up mirror that brings to mind the blink-and-you'll-miss-it shot of the demon standing by the baby's bed in the first Insidious and The Marked Ones' ending, which is best experienced cold, is as boldly and batshit-ly ambitious as one of those three Wan pictures. Like Wan, Landon makes good use of framing, keeping the camera widely panned enough to catch little movements and apparitions in its corners. Granted, Landon was surely working on The Marked Ones before either The Conjuring or Insidious Chapter II opened last summer, but their sensibilities are in line here.
Before long, Jesse starts going through physical and emotional changes. With Jesse's camera, a graduation present, in hand, Jesse, Hector, and their friend Marisol ( Gabrielle Walsh) snoop around her empty apartment, wherein they uncover a variety of occultist paraphernalia. Then, she gets murdered by one of their classmates, Oscar ( Carlos Pratts), their senior class valedictorian. After some family parties and celebrations, they notice that Jesse's reclusive, unpleasant, and elderly neighbor, Anna, is acting stranger than ever. They're a blast to be around, too, equally charming and funny, kicking back tequila shots with Jesse's grandmother, and passing time doing their own Jackass-like stunts. Best pals Jesse ( Andrew Jacobs) and Hector ( Jorge Diaz) have just graduated from high school. Instead of the traditional family unit, Landon turns his attention to a small group of teenage friends living in Oxnard, California. Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones defies all of that, most importantly through its characters. At their best, the films have mined steady suspense from that conceit at their worst, as in the case of Paranormal Activity 4, they've been perfunctory slogs. The Paranormal Activity formula has been consistent: Spend over an hour with a semi- to uninteresting family, watch them freak out over doors rattling or household appliances suddenly becoming animate, and then enjoy about 10-20 minutes worth of supernatural mayhem before the camera-within-the-movie turns off right when the good stuff is about to go down. There's a constant energy to the film that none of its predecessors have. The franchise's strongest installment, Landon's spinoff/whatever-the-hell is its own reckless animal within the PA fold. Nor is Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones as superfluous as those commercials might make it seem. No, it doesn't look as goofy as that sounds. It's his possessed buddy, somehow getting sucked into the wall and then violently spit back out towards the camera. Nervously searching around the room, he notices something strange happening in the corner by the television. His loved ones are trying to cleanse his soul when the "marked one" attacks, turning the apartment's lights out, causing his friend, who is recording everything on his trusty camcorder, to use the machine's night-vision scope. It's the beginning of the film's breakneck third act, and one of the main characters is going full-blown demonic possession. One sequence, though, displays just how much Landon-who's also written every PA film except for writer-director Oren Peli 's 2009 original-and his creative impulses have been rejuvenated. Landon to wipe the stink of PA4 off the minds of audiences in the series' latest entry, the kind of spinoff, but totally still canon, Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones (in theaters nationwide tonight at 10 p.m.). It doesn't take long for writer-director Christopher B. Even worse, PA4 mimicked many of the best things about the excellent Paranormal Activity 3, also co-directed by Joost and Schulman.
Directed by the original Catfish filmmakers Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, the juggernaut, low-budget horror franchise's fourth entry signaled that the brand had run out of ideas. If 2012's Paranormal Activity 4 will be remembered for anything, which it shouldn't, it's for nearly killing the PA found-footage brand.
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