Paranormal Activity 2 (2010)
Directed by Tod Williams
Written by Michael R. Perry, Christopher Landon
Starring Micah Sloat, Katie Featherston
Release Date October 22nd, 2010
Published October 21st, 2010
You can never go home again. It's a quote I live by as a way of looking forward instead of looking back. Sometimes, it seems that all Hollywood can do is look back. Sequel after sequel attempts to recreate the brilliance of an original and 99.9% of these sequels fail. Why? Because, you can't go home again. You can't recreate greatness. Failing to look forward inevitably leads to falling down. The makers of “Paranormal Activity 2” are at the moment tumbling into the abyss.
I won't spend much time on a plot description as many of you are going to see this film and may actually find a way to enjoy it; I understand a good buzz might help. Essentially, a California family finds themselves plagued by unseen forces. The actions of these unseen forces, possibly linked to the past of mom, Kristie, are caught on the family's new in-home security system; cameras conveniently placed everywhere from the patio to the bedroom of the new baby, Hunter.
Doors slam from unseen forces acting on them. Drawers and cabinets spill their contents for no earthly reason. And, noises and voices can be heard late in the night and their source is nowhere to be found. For nights on end these creepy things keep happening, all captured on camera and pored over the following morning by the dazed and confused family.
The key to the first “Paranormal Activity,” released just a year ago, was the surprise and the seeming newness of director Oren Peli's approach. Sure, we'd seen something of it's like in “The Blair Witch Project” and “Open Water,” each film features first person filmmaking that claims to be found footage cut together by those hoping to piece together a horror story as if from an investigators perspective.
The main difference with “Paranormal Activity” was the supreme payoff that director Peli delivered like a gut punch to his prone audience well captivated by his talent for creepy images and clever sound play. Fair to say much of “Paranormal Activity” played on the stock horror cliché of the misplaced noise but the low budget spirit, the film cost under 15 grand to make, gave the film a clever underdog spirit that made the cliché charming.
”Paranormal Activity 2” has no such underdog spirit; it is indeed the well renowned favorite heading into the Halloween horror movie box office sweepstakes. Audiences enter the sequel knowing what to expect and getting exactly that, over and over and over again. Scene after scene of set up, noise, jump and back to daylight for a brief post mortem before the lowlight cameras pop on again and await the next jumpy noise or thing that moves that shouldn't.
By the sixth night this reviewer couldn't wait for the Demon to finally arrive and finish either the family or him off. “Paranormal Activity 2” is a tedious attempt to recreate the scares of the first film but lacking the clever visuals and anchored to a lame back story to connect it with the first film that I'm sure is meant to be surprising but is merely perfunctory.
Original director Oren Peli stepped aside for the sequel, offering only a pass at the script. The sequel is directed by Tod Williams a talented storyteller who’s “Door in the Floor” was a pompous but effective character piece. Sadly, Williams is on auto-pilot in “Paranormal Activity 2” which frankly is the rare film that might have benefited from a little pomposity. At least then the characters would exist beyond their ability to play scared.
You can't go home again but you can go to the bank whenever you want and that is impetus behind “Paranormal Activity 2”. Paramount Pictures is going to the bank and we will bankroll them because we want to believe that you can go home again, that the things we loved before can be recreated for us. Sequels play on a modern nostalgia in which something is lamented just days or months after it came into existence.
”Paranormal Activity” was a phenomenon just a year ago but it may as well have been a decade ago in our disposable culture and pop junkies began lamenting the past mere months after the film was available on DVD. Now, that lament is being channeled to the big screen in a cash grab attempt to tap our memories to get to our wallet. It's the height of cynicism and topped with the tedium of the actual film, it makes “Paranormal Activity 2” an unbearable experience.
