PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2 - REVIEW


Concept movies never really live up to their clever premises. And neither did the "classic" of the reality-horror subgenre The Blair Witch Project. A good start and a good end did not make a great film and the dire sequel failed on all accounts. Since then, countless films have attempted to do it right (My Little Eye, The Fourth Kind) but only the first Paranormal Activity managed to be consistent and sneaky enough to pull it off.

A sequel with a different director was always going to be a gamble and Paranormal Activity 2 thankfully doesn't tank completely. More is at stake here: a baby, a girl, a couple, a maid, a dog... But somehow you never feel the danger you felt in the original film. Perhaps too many cooks spoil the broth and it feels a bit too crowded to truly isolate the audience accordingly.

An attempt is made at linking the story of this instalment with the first film but that also doesn't really work as the back-and-forth through the timeline tends to get a bit too distracting.

Although it takes a long time for anything to happen, when it does it's usually effective. This alone makes it worthwhile and if you enjoyed the first film, you'll definitely enjoy parts of this one, just don't expect too much. Everyone else will probably be bored.

Overall, not bad and most definitely not a Blair Witch 2-style disaster but really they should have stopped at 1. Hopefully the third instalment will iron out some of Paranormal Activity 2's issues and won't Saw the hell out of it.

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