Last year’s Paranormal Activity was a disappointing (sez me) Blair Witch knockoff that at least had the decency to stay true to its found footage gimmick: the actors are credited as themselves, the film ends ominously with no revelation of a production team behind the scenes. How do you faithfully produce a sequel to this?
The producers of Blair Witch 2 (a total failure, but they had the right idea) abandoned the gimmickry and presented a transparently fictional film that attempted to pad out the myth surrounding the original.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, Paranormal Activity 2 rehashes the first film and expects us to eat it up just the same. It begins with a crawl thanking “the families of those involved” and dishes out a new round of “actual” home video and surveillance footage, tangentially related to the events in the first film.
Stick around after the ending for credits detailing the actors and the team behind the camera. Yeah, no shit; union regulations may have forced Paramount’s hand, but rarely do films hold their audience in such (obvious) contempt.
But that’s not all: this is a film (unlike the first) built around jump scares, as we patiently navigate from security cam to security cam waiting for the ghost to jump out and say “boo!” This happens again and again, but only one such scene is in any way effective: a kitchen pots and pans and cupboard doors sequence that explicitly recalls Poltergeist.
For the rest of the scare scenes, there’s no beating around the bush: laughable. We get floating babies and demonic pool cleaners and the worst offenders, two positively ridiculous on-screen deaths (the first film featured none). I’m sorry, but when you build your film around “authentic” home video footage, you owe the audience more than Rambo-like super soldier kills. I attempted (sometimes in vain) to chuckle politely to myself; other members of the audience erupted in laughter.
It’s a shame, because the film does have a creepy vibe going for it that somewhat approximates the original. I worked (briefly) as a night watchman while in college, and know from experience that there’s something inherently spooky about watching surveillance camera footage; the longer nothing happens, the worse it can get. It’s something the makers of this film never take advantage of, deflating all their tension with each progressive “boo!”
The story here, considering the limitations set by the original, is actually well thought out. During a timeframe that encompasses the original Paranormal Activity, Katie’s sister Kristi (Sprague Grayden), husband Daniel (Brian Boland), and daughter Ali (Molly Ephraim) slowly come to realize that their house has become haunted shortly after the birth of a new son. How this ties into the first film is surprisingly satisfying.
Paranormal Activity 2 gets points for entertainment value: rarely are bad films this fun to watch, and given the production gimmick, the filmmakers are careful never to let utter boredom sink in. The Daniel character (possibly due to – apologies – Boland’s acting capabilities) frequently recalls the father in the ultimate bad movie, Troll 2. His adamant refusal to believe in the ghostly goings-on, and bizarre explanations for them, often reach hilarious heights.
No points, however, for frequently placing an infant, a German Shepherd, and a relatively innocent teenage girl in frequent mortal danger. Cheap and tasteless, but apparently necessary: the adult characters are such total idiots we begin cheering for their demise about halfway through.
Director Tod Williams previously delivered the terrific indies The Adventures of Sebastian Cole and The Door in the Floor. Where did this come from? The gimmick at the core of the film almost precludes a director’s involvement, and indeed, there is no distinctive style to set it apart from the first film. It could have functioned without a director (in traditional terms, at least), and frequently feels as if it had.
