Paranormal Activity 2

Plot synopsis:
The film opens with home video footage of Kristi Rey (Sprague Grayden) bringing her newborn son Hunter (William Juan Prieto & Jackson Xenia Prieto) home from the hospital. We then follow Hunter through the first several months of his life via a montage of various video clips. We meet Kristi's husband Dan Rey (Brian Boland), Ali (Molly Ephraim), his daughter from a previous marriage, Martine (Vivis Cortez), the family's housekeeper/nanny and Abby, the family's German Shepherd.A year after Hunter is born, the family comes home to find their house seemingly broken into (though both doors were locked) and trashed, though the only thing missing is a necklace which Kristi's sister Katie (Katie Featherston) had given to her. Dan has a number of security cameras installed throughout the house - in the backyard, baby's room, kitchen, living room, entryway, and outside the front door.The first night, suspicious activity begins, with the pool light flickering and eventually dying out in the middle of the night, and the pool cleaner being taken out of the pool. Soon pots begin to fall seemingly of their own accord in the kitchen. Hunter is repeatedly woken up in the middle of the night by loud banging sounds from inside the house and outside his window, and Abby is seen staring at something unseen in Hunter's room and barking or growling at it. After one evening where this happens, Martine attempts to cleanse the house of "evil spirits." Upon discovering the nanny performing these acts, Dan fires her. Katie and Kristi reveal that, as children, they felt they were tormented by a demon or unknown spirit, but they tried to keep the ordeal a secret and not talk about it. Ali begins investigating the mysterious happenings. She discovers that, if a human makes a deal with a demon for wealth or power, the payment for said deal is the life of the family's first-born male; coincidentally, Hunter is the first male to be born into Kristi and Katie's side of the family since their great-great-grandmother was alive.Kristi confides in Katie everything that has been happening, and tries to bring up how, as children, they felt demons around them; Katie becomes really angry and demands that Kristi not pay the events any attention, for it would just make things worse. Soon after, while Kristi is in the kitchen, the cupboards are flung open and everything explodes out of them. The violence continues to escalate; the family dog, Abby, is attacked and pulled violently off camera and knocked unconscious. Dan and Ali take the dog to the vet, leaving Kristi alone with Hunter. She goes to check on the baby and notices a light flicker off. She turns the light back on, but then is dragged by an unseen force out of the room and halfway down the stairs before she is released. Kristi runs back upstairs into Hunter's room but she is dragged back downstairs, this time into the basement where she stays for over an hour. Finally, the basement door opens and Kristi emerges, dazed and presumably possessed.The following day, Ali is at home with Kristi, who won't get out of bed. Ali goes upstairs after hearing several banging sounds to find Kristi sitting in the baby's room with a bite mark on her thigh, while Hunter is crying for unknown reasons. She hears a thump in her own room and goes to investigate, yet looks back to find Kristi has left Hunter's room. Ali goes back later to comfort a screaming Hunter while Kristi stands in his room at the window, staring out at everything; when Ali gets too close, however, she turns and commands that Ali not go near him. Ali calls Dan, crying, and begs him to come home. When he arrives, she shows him the footage from the night before of Kristi being dragged down the stairs. Dan immediately calls Martine, who prepares a cross that will force the demon out of Kristi. But she adds one last detail: the demon will have to be passed on afterwards to someone else, a blood relative, to keep it from returning. Dan tells Ali that he is going to pass the demon onto Katie so that Kristi and Hunter will be saved; she pleads with him not to, but he doesn't listen.Dan approaches Kristi, who is sitting up in bed in a daze. He attempts to touch her with the cross, but she bites him, and all the lights in the house go out. Kristi and the baby disappear, and Ali says that they're in the basement. After fumbling around and knocking things over in the dark, Dan finds Hunter in a corner of the basement, seemingly alone. From behind, Kristi attempts to attack him, knocking the camera from his hands. Dan manages to put the cross on her chest to remove the demon from her body. The floor begins to shake and demonic yells are heard. The next scene shows Dan putting Kristi to bed and then burning a photo of a young Katie, to pass the demon on to her.Three weeks later, Katie visits and explains how things have now begun happening at her house; Kristi, having no memory of Dan's actions, says that the paranormal events have stopped at her house, and that Katie should follow her own advice and not pay any attention to what is going on. After Katie leaves, we see her arrive at her and Micah's house, where he has just purchased the camera. This is where the events of Paranormal Activity take place, as the demon slowly begins to infiltrate Katie and Micah's life and eventually possess Katie and kill Micah.The next scene cuts to the night after Micah was murdered. Dan is watching television in the living room and Kristi is in the baby's room, holding Hunter because he had woken up crying. Katie, possessed and bloodstained from the murder of Micah, is seen standing in the entry of the house behind Dan. She approaches him silently from behind and snaps his neck. Kristi hears the commotion downstairs, then spots Katie approaching her from the dark hallway. Katie violently throws Kristi against a wall, killing her and Hunter begins to cry. The final scene is Katie calmly leaving the room with Hunter, who begins to giggle as they disappear down the hallway.The ending credits say that Ali was on a school trip and returned home to find her father and step-mother dead. Katie and Hunter's whereabouts remain unknown.

Tags: cult, boring, murder

Review:
They all could be better in SOME way, and this is no exception, but I think it is a pretty darn good movie, and worth the time.Oh, I should also tell you kind of "Where I'm coming from." I LOVE a good horror movie.
The Paranormal Activity movies stand out as the best horror films since the superb El Orphanato, you just have to be willing to fill in some of the blanks yourself to truly appreciate the terror.Many people "pooh-pooh" the Paranormal Activity films, but I think it's likely because they've become desensitized to good horror by all the tripe that constantly comes out undeservedly under the "horror" name these days.
It's a perfect example of greedy producers wanting to earn more money on account of the first movie, without actually caring what the sequel is all about or how many people who see it will feel like they've been fooled.
I really like the establishing of the characters where we get to know Christi, Hunter, Ali and heck, even the dog.The premise is simple: A family related to Katie in the first film moves into a house, has a baby, and everything seems to be like one big happy family.
However, do people really have time to wait for more than 50 minutes into a horror movie before anything that could be called "scary" happens?
When the film finally did open up and all characters were aware of the demon it was a short lived sense of suspense.The idea in itself of a demon in a house haunting a family with demonic references and not just a simple ghost story personally fascinates me.
Some films need time to form and develop.This is certainly the case for 'Paranormal Activity 2' as for the opening 45 minutes, the pacing of the film was punishingly slow and a dreary watch for almost everyone in existence I can guarantee.
Basically they make the movie so incredibly boring that by the time anything happens you feel like you NEED to react to help make you feel better for having spent money on it.
It was like watching boring home movies of sorority girls and their kids for at least an hour before even the hint of something was going to happen.
Otherwise this is a film that requires you to have watched the first in order to maximize your enjoyment because it makes references to, and ties in intricately with the first, without which you'll be questioning who's who, and the significance of things that can be innocuous if seen by itself.Writer-director Oren Peli who created the original film takes a backseat here as producer, handing over the directing reins to Tod Williams and writing responsibility to Michael R.
The first film posed a number of questions, some of which get addressed here, but in turn builds upon what's known thus far to create more unknowns through the narrative, which is more "talky" since there are a handful of scenes involving a HD camera bought by the family to document baby Hunter's growth, now used to document the strange apparitions that happen more frequently as the story wore on.
Some scenes involve switching the camera on during a conversation (yeah, perhaps the social-media aware teenager of today will require everything to be made available and put online), and the constant refusal of the father figure to look at evidence will stretch believability just a tad bitThe spook factor gets considerably dumbed down from the first film, though making the same impact as the filmmakers went all out to shock you out of complacency as you think by darting your eyes around the screen trying to pick up clues or signs would mean you can keep a step ahead.
Here we follow the Dey family of four - Dad Daniel, Mum Kristi who is the sister of the first film's Katie, and kids Ali the teenager and Hunter the toddler, where Perry's story provides the backstory, some opening doors for another prequel, while providing closure from PA.Will there be another Paranormal Activity film?
Again it's simply another story told through the eyes of a camera lenses and the writers inject some unnecessary connections and exposition to the goings on which takes away some of the mysteries random edge.It's nearly 15 years since the 'The Blair Witch Project' used the camera point of view and while Paranormal Activity 2 looks better than the first it goes over the same old formula.
Just a couple of parts that felt forced.But for all the hype, I still walked away thinking that despite a great job of tying in the events and the overlap between both movies, that it felt like they struggled to come up with something fresh to scare us with this time.And how can they possibly do a third PA with what happened at the end and the fate of several of the characters?
First of all I made my partner take me to see this (bad move as it resulted in an argument about who had talent in choosing movies, I lost).The only thing that scared me was the scene in the kitchen with the doors suddenly opening and THAT was only scary because the sound was so fu*king loud that you jumped for that reason alone.I did enjoy seeing the vacuous late-teenage-bimbos all shriek their heads off at the "scary moments".The only positive point I can say is the acting of the dog and toddler were amazing!
It's apparent while watching the film that PA2 relies more on jump scares than on maintaining an atmosphere like PA, which may be good or bad news depending on which you prefer more.
When I watched the first Paranormal Activity (purely out of boredom, I'm not a big fan of horror films) I was outraged.
I don't know what it is about this "new" style which solely consists of taking a video camera somewhere (any setting you choose) and just leave it there to film long streaks of nothingness.When I discussed my views of Open Water back then some people said that I lacked imagination.
Then there was the plot or well I have trouble calling it a plot since apart from a door that closes by itself...(yeah you guessed right "..." means "nothing")Overall it was a major disappointment and I really couldn't believe that so many people were actually frightened by what seemed to me time well wasted.And now there is part 2...of course every movie franchise nowadays has to be at least a trilogy because people get hooked easily enough and always need to know the pre-/se-/anything-quel of a story (however bad and unimaginative it may be) but this ?
(Is he snoring because of his cold or may there be a supernatural entity blocking his airways..who knows --> terror !!!) My advice is to go see ANY other movie that might be on around your place and if you must see this film,don't pay for it, it's bad enough to lose precious time of your life to this fusion of bad acting, dull "plot" and overall breathtaking boredom.
Then weird, unexplained things start happening.Paranormal Activity 2 easily could have been a phoned in sequel made specifically to bank on the original film's success.
It was secretive for a reason, and those going in unspoiled will no doubt enjoy the movie a lot more than those with an idea of what to expect going in.What also works is that the film does not do away with the little scares and idiosyncrasies that made Paranormal Activity so effective.
I liked these early moments a lot more than most people did, but I still think they could have been significantly stronger and better honed.I also feel that, despite the lengths everyone went to creating a film that did not simply cash in on a brand, its lasting impact was nowhere near as intense and petrifying as the original film.
In the last 30 minutes, there are some creepy moments which will give you goose pimples, thanks to the demon's rumble, the dog's growls, the creaks of the door echoing eerily in the house, etc, whereas those who have watched the first film may find the tactics used familiar and the story formulaic.To make the most out of the film, you should watch Paranormal Activity 1 first because it starts as a prequel and ends with a twist related to the first film.
Besides, you should avoid spoilers and watch it in a cinema with as few talky people as possible.Those who have watched the first film may find Paranormal Activity 2, whose tactics we have already seen, less scary..
It really did not need a sequel and probably is better off on its own without one, but money talks, and that thing made a lot of money.With PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2, we are introduced to the sister of the young girl who was featured in the first movie.
The real scares do not really start occurring until way too late in the movie, and by that time we've been bored in between anticipating lackluster "jump" sounds, like amplified "BANGS!," designed to give us a lazy jolt.
For good reason, too; Paranormal Activity and its sequel are truly horrifying films.In an age of movies like Saw 3D, it is difficult to find a horror movie that can genuinely scare you, and even rarer one that doesn't rely at all on blood and gore to do so.
Love the roller coaster of scaring people, then cutting into a scene that's pretty comical - for example the time lapse with the dog rolling over - lots of laughs, then 20 second later everyone screaming -- good stuff.Only thing that I wish was that it wasn't so predictable, but that's common with sequels.
Its not even a true sequel, as the credits state it is "inspired by the motion picture, Paranormal Activity"!It's slow, terribly-clichéd and -- as a long-time horror fan of all kinds of horror films, especially the psychological ones -- not very scary.
common people wake up in reality, both parts were sort of documentary rater than a meaningful or pop-corn flick, ghosts don't close or open doors or cup-boards or such bogus things, it's just to scare humans, as we humans are unaware of our inventor n objective to live n die, we all r scared somewhere n nowadays what we see is destruction of the world via aliens, natural disasters, terrorism, or feel scared when a wind blow shuts the door n we think that there is a spirit, common live in reality, today people get afraid from terrorism, governments spending fortune to nail them but do we all know that everyday 25000 people die from starving; n this figure is way bigger than anything else, but r we helping them no we don't we blame each other, same goes here when u c paranormal activity 1 n 2 both r purely bogus n try to stay real to make u afraid but how many people died because of ghosts?
then tell me how many people die from criminals, so human is far scary than ghosts, horror movies r good 4 entertainment but movies such like this mislead people n effects in their sub-conscious n they fear more n live less, don't insult cinema with crappy movie like this just like "the fourth kind", don't try 2 be real coz it's not real just go 4 entertainment n cinema value, I don't know but nowadays world destruction n torture n self-proclaimed ghost movies r getting good opening, look guys we all gonna die one day even this planet also but inventor knows d best so whats d big deal, omen was a entertaining fiction or drag me to hell, these movies just try 2 entertain but paranormal activity common it's not scary or entertaining but a failed try to convince that ghost in ur house will open/shut doors or make u crazy, I will give 10,000 dollars if any1 can prove with any footage evidence that ghost made their teacup float in air; n I'm serious about 10,000 dollars my email the_aryankapoor@yahoo.com, don't be afraid people there is no proof in da world to win 10,000 bucks, n horror should be just 4 entertainment not 2 make people superstitious...
You leave with an understanding of both movies, and the jump-out-of-your-seat moments in this film surpasses the first.Sure, the characters filming during scenes of high intensity seems unrealistic, but the acting isn't bad and the documentary style it's filmed in works perfectly.The pacing is perfect, building the anticipation and tension and then delivering at exactly the right moment.
The movie is supposedly the sequel of Paranormal Activity, but director Tod Williams made it looked like this was before the events took place it the first film.
When the audience you're seeing it with is laughing at the scary parts and are yawning and sighing through out the film, that is never a good thing and I was doing it right along with them and looking at my watch a little too often because I was very bored.Basically, it was a gag movie.
I also understand that perhaps the makers of the film were just attempting to introduce the characters to the audience so we get to know them more, thus care about them more, but again, I felt way too much time was spent on that, and then I didn't think much of the characters because I didn't find them funny, or entertaining, nor was there anything about them that caused me to pity them, or like them, and overall, I could not relate to them much, and they were easily forgettable after the film was over.I've read some people reviews about this film where they claim to hate the first one, but love the second one, and I can see why some people may feel that way - It's because this is the highly censored and G-rated verison of the first "Paranormal Activity".
Just a watered down, made for ABC-TV Family movie verison of the first "Paranormal Activity".In closing, the film was one of the biggest disappointments I've ever seen.
This film, however, starts to fill in those answers.While this is not a fantastic movie, it's still a good, creepy movie to watch and the way this one ties in with the first makes it that little bit better..
I suggest you see it in the cinema as the quality and visual impact of the film is terrifying, but perhaps at a later date when it is quieter and less crowded.The original created more of an impact because it was different, in this film we knew what to expect but that was covered up with a different storyline and a few extra jumpy moments.Superb acting in the film, it was too life-like in some cases that took away that cinematic effect making it all too weird and disturbing...I think the idea that not knowing what was going on a lot of the time was scarier...
And yet the weirdness continues and even escalates.The movie is shot in the same manner as in the original film; that is, using hand-held video cameras and those omnipresent security cameras to depict not only what the family is feeling but what's happening when they're not around.
I think the majority of people watching this film are going to be use to this type of movie so these cheap tricks aren't going to work.
Films like the first movie and THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT make you feel like you're watching real footage but that really didn't happen here.
PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2 is like so many films that follow up great movies in that there's no real imagination and instead we're basically given a rehash of the previous film.
You have the demon that wants to posses a person's soul, a baby and a dog who are the only ones that can actually see it, and the "paranormal activity" that we used in the ghost stories we told as kids.Just to be fair, yes, things like lights turning themselves on, and toys moving by themselves would be creepy in real life, but it's like these movies are more like parodies of a ghost movie.
To me, these films are all very successful in what they are trying to accomplish.As far as Paranormal Activity 2 goes, it at times feels like more of the same, but the filmmakers actually do a plethora of devilishly clever things throughout the film.
I wouldn't say that it is as scary because we already know, to some extent, what to expect from this demon, but nothing stopped Paranormal Activity 2 from scaring the hell out of me.Honestly, you should see this film.
It's inevitable to feel surprised when that happens and I also think it's a valid way to scare people in a horror film.
As the supernatural events escalate, Ali desperately tries to convince her sceptical father Daniel (Brian Boland) that something is terribly wrong in their home (apart from the fact that the parents let an Alsation sleep in the baby's room and haven't installed stair gates!).For much of the time Paranormal Activity 2 feels like the cinematic equivalent of a Where's Wally book, only instead of wasting time searching for a bespectacled man in a stripy outfit, the idea is to try and spot almost imperceptible movement in an otherwise seemingly static environment, the most likely result of which will be eye-strain rather than abject terror.After much unspectacular supernatural malarkey, the malevolent demon finally musters up the energy to make more than a baby's mobile rotate slowly or a saucepan fall off a hook and delivers some genuinely effective scares (accompanied by very loud noises to wake up those who might have dozed off), but when all is said and done, this second movie is far too similar to its predecessor to be considered a worthwhile follow-up.4.5 out of 10, rounded up to 5 for IMDb..