Paranormal Activity 2 (2010)
Starring Brian Boland, Sprague Graydon, Molly Ephraim, Katie Featherston, and Micah Sloat
Directed by Tod Williams
I couldn't wrap my head around the phenomenon of the original Paranormal Activity when it was released in 2009. Yes, it was a tad tense during the film's final act when Katie (Katie Featherston) and Micah (Micah Sloat) fully came to the realization that there was some evil spirit in their house, but there was an hour prior to that where absolutely nothing happened. Writer-director Oren Peli just wasn't able to craft a film that consistently raised the tension throughout and it just didn't work for me like it did for the millions of other people who saw it and liked it.
Unfortunately, the same things apply to Paranormal Activity 2 which is really a prequel to the first film. We get an hour of nothing, followed by a solid thirty minutes of suspense. That just doesn't have the makings of a very good film to me. However, I will say that this second flick has a slight edge on its predecessor in that it gives us an interesting backstory that actually enhances the overarching storyline of the series as a whole. For that, I'll give the writer props, but it still is a film with sixty minutes of essentially nothing going on worth watching. And that sixty minutes is essentially the exact same sixty minutes of nothingness that we saw in the first film. However, this time, the handheld video and nanny cams have shifted to Katie's sister's house.
Much like her sister, Kristi (Sprague Graydon) had some issues with the paranormal in her youth. Soon after Kristi gives birth to her son Hunter, strange things begin happening around the house. Despite attempts to persuade her husband (Brian Boland) that a ghost is running amok, Kristi can't convince him of the demonic activity in their home. I could continue, but you'd be reading the same storyline from the first film and it bored me then, so it's certainly boring me now.
The acting here is better than in the original. Ms. Graydon and Mr. Boland are a much better duo than original stars Ms. Featherston and Mr. Sloat (they make brief appearances in this film as well). And, like I said above, I enjoyed how this sequel/prequel actually managed to enhance the storyline of the first flick. Still, this is a series that has only worked for a collective hour out of three and that just doesn't cut it in my book.
The RyMickey Rating: C
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