PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2- Spoiler Review

This review contains SPOILERS. These are my thoughts, post-viewing, to be read after seeing Paranormal Activity 2 in cinemas. My spoiler-free review can be found on Den of Geek.

The Paranormal Activity phenomenon passed me by last year, as you might have noticed. I caught the first film on DVD last weekend and was stubbornly refusing to see the sequel in the cinema for reasons that shall become apparent. The first film is fine, for what it is. The pacing is languid because it's posing as the relation of relevant events in a haunting/homicide, but it was engaging enough to keep me watching even though not much was happening.

As you'll have gathered, I have now seen Paranormal Activity 2.

It's not so much a sequel as a companion piece, which makes it, as Brad Miska has brilliantly called it over on Bloody Disgusting, the original film's "sexy twin sister". It's set 60 days before the death of Micah Stoat at the end of the first film, and thus he and Katie appear in this film while visiting her sister. This particular Featherstone girl is happily married with two kids, but finds her baby boy in danger when the family home is set upon by the vicious demon who stalked her in the night when she was young.

Part of the reason I was so resistant to the hype-zilla word of mouth appeal of Paranormal Activity was knowing how the Internet has further inflated the system of success in the horror genre. Stories of a film being so terrifying that viewers fainted and screamed their way through viewings date all the way back to The Exorcist, and more recently to The Blair Witch Project. Then I was even more resistant to the sequel, because I assumed, and I think fairly so, that we were in Blair Witch 2- Book of Shadows territory.

There's a different director, a different writer and it was rushed into production for release near Halloween, in the same slot as Saw, the multiplex fixture it trounced at the box office last year and which it now seems set to replace. The truth is, Paranormal Activity 2 is far better and far more fun that it has any right to be, all things considered. Nevertheless, it's still on equal standing with the first film, for me.

With only the merest amount of extra effort, this could have been something brilliant. For starters, it ekes out the tension brilliantly for the first half hour in a way that didn't work as well in the first film. Director Tod Williams holds shots for long periods without any jump-scare or fright, anticipating and simultaneously fuelling your reaction to the familiar style of horror that everyone liked the first time around. There's no cheap Opening Credits Kill, and when that first jump-scare eventually comes, it's in broad daylight. Oh, how I wish they'd followed that line of thinking to its conclusion.

If this film had made fans as scared of their house during the day as Paranormal Activity did with the nocturnal noises and disturbances, it would be something very special. Instead, the film follows the slightly more mean-spirited line of terrorising Hunter, the baby boy who the demon has marked for spiritual repo, and the tortured family's German Shepherd- two innocents, both confused by the panic of the household's other inhabitants.

Had I stayed through the credits, I'd have been able to tell you some of the cast and characters' names, because there's no cast list online just yet. Never mind though, because they're not doing anything special here. The first film had the interesting relationship between Micah and the spectral intruder, the former trying to assert a possessive masculinity over an entity that's more interested in the demonic kind of possession. This one has a larger cast doing the same brand of naturalistic acting and not a lot else.

Crucially, I think the film feels more constructed than its predecessor. This feels like it was assembled for an audience rather than exhibited for posterity, as it would have seemed for those who were fooled by the found footage gambit. We know it's not real simply because it's Paranormal Activity 2, but it would be nice to see them trying, instead of putting credits on the end where the original had a copyright notice that at least partially preserved the ambiguity of what we'd just seen.

All an actor can really do in these films is react to spooky stuff. The characters aren't interesting enough this time around- they catch up with the audience at different times, and once they're all with us, they call in precisely the wrong person for help. Most of us would call Father Karras or Peter Venkman, but this family calls in their Hispanic religious stereotype housemaid, who sensed bad juju before it all went down. You know, everyone's favourite character from Devil. On the writing and directing side of things, there's a little more flair, and they set things up nicely for the inevitable Paranormal Activity 3.

In a more enjoyable way than Saw IV was to Saw III, Paranormal Activity 2 moves nimbly alongside its predecessor to the point where Katie and Hunter disappear off the map. There are loose threads that can be picked up again next year- the now-orphaned Ali, the potentially dead dog and perhaps even the housemaid who screams "Diablo" and waves incense around. These films are more good-natured than Saw, at least in their lack of gratuitous gore, and could feasibly form a Halloween movie tradition to supplant that series after next week's (supposedly) final chapter

Personally, I doubt I would have enjoyed Paranormal Activity 2 as much without the stellar reactions of my fellow cinema viewers. My experience with Buried proves that it's difficult to find an audience who want to see the film as much as these people did, but they lapped it up. They gave it full-on screams, nervous laughter and most rewardingly, their full attention. The reaction is as much a part of the experience as the film, and for a somewhat breathless redo of Paranormal Activity, it's certainly not bad. Not as good as 2010's other found footage movies, The Last Exorcism and [REC] 2, but good enough. 

Paranormal Activity 2 is now showing in selected cinemas nationwide.
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If you've seen Paranormal Activity 2, why not share your comments below? If you're having sleepless nights this week, I empathise entirely. I couldn't believe that people in the UK would go and see Vampires Suck either.

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

Exorschism- THE LAST EXORCISM Review

In the vein of other recent found footage horror films, The Last Exorcism covers the ultimate assignment for Father Cotton Marcus, guerilla style. The Marcus men have long been preachers, passing down the tricks of the trade in phoney exorcisms along the way. Cotton's scruples have come to the fore when he realises that more zealous exorcists are actually hurting the supposedly possessed rather than helping.

With a crisis of faith, some special effects and a small documentary crew, he aims to expose the trade of exorcism by showing on camera how he and so many others have went about in their line of work for so many years. However, the case he chooses as his last exorcism isn't as clear-cut as he first thought- is innocent young Nell Sweetzer mentally ill like so many of those Cotton has helped, or is she possessed by a real demon?

The ending is poorly executed. That's what you're hearing, right? All of the word of mouth around this film since its release has been fixated on the final two minutes of the film, and possibly with good reason. Nevertheless, to make a bullet point of the film's chilling punchline is to do its makers a disservice. Above all else, The Last Exorcism is a damn good horror film.

Is it a scary horror film? Well, not to me, but then all films with this subject matter are on the backfoot with me as a viewer- I'm an atheist, so that old horror adage of telling yourself "it's only a film" is just a given when it comes to religious horror. What this one did very well is entertain me. I can't think of a horror film in recent times that's made itself as accessible and enjoyable as this one.

I can definitely see this one really creeping out those who do have the fear of God (and in turn, the Devil) in them though. Director Daniel Stamm builds a strong atmosphere from the moment Cotton arrives at the Sweetzer's farm, playing with the audience's expectations by showing us how certain our hero is that this will all be very simple. And that's played wonderfully by Patrick Fabian.

Here's a puzzler for you- name me a good performance in an American horror film from the last ten years. They're not non-existent, but I bet you couldn't name, say, ten off the top of your head. So often in recent times, characters are little more than disposable killing fodder in the mean-spirited brand the genre has taken up in the Saw and Final Destination franchises. By contrast, the filmmakers here care about these characters, and they make us care too.

That's exclusively Patrick Fabian's province for the first 20 minutes or so. How good is he? Think Sharlto Copley in District 9. Fabian gives an absolute knockout performance as the jaded preacher, whose quick charm and confidence makes an audience feel safe, as he lets them peek behind the velvet curtain of exorcism practices. Then the curtain closes, and the horror ramps up, and Fabian is just as good there too.

Wisely, Stamm doesn't evoke The Exorcist much, beyond a quick one-liner from Cotton about Roman Catholics having "the movie". Our winsome and possibly possessed farm girl Nell, played marvellously by Ashley Bell, doesn't do anything involving 360-degree head rotations or pea soup, which gels with the ambiguity of her condition too. No, the film this is most like on a structural level is District 9, working well with the mock-doc format as opposed to trying to desperately bluff the audience into thinking this really happened, like The Fourth Kind.

With the exception of sporadic musical cues and occasional lapses into a two-camera setup where there should only be one camera, it holds up very well as a faux documentary for the first 80 minutes. Then there's that ending I mentioned. I should clarify, I've seen the film twice now. The first time I saw the ending, I despised it. I felt angry and cheated, and felt that Stamm had fell at the last hurdle and resorted to the most heavy-handed fumbling of a conclusion imaginable.

Second time around, I knew what you're in for. And it works. Alright, it's still poorly executed- after getting to know the characters so well, they're not served properly by how abruptly it ends, but hey, at least it's not an incompetent ending- the second time around, you see just how the screenplay has foreshadowing seeded throughout. The ending certainly shouldn't put you off seeing the most fresh and interesting horror film ever to have Eli Roth's name slapped on it. This is the guy who was judging a wet T-shirt competition in Piranha 3D not two weeks ago, and now his name is on a horror film miles away from the leering and hyper-violent shockers he's pumped out for the last few years.

Follow these instructions carefully. See The Last Exorcism. Then whether you like the ending or not, see it again. Because if you do like it, you'll be happy to give the film another outing, and if you don't like it, I hope you'll find the same renewed appreciation that I did. This is a clever, well-paced film with terrific performances and a very strong central enigma throughout. It has flaws, definitely, but I think we definitely need to see more films like this, and less of the mind-numbing horrors that bring out cardboard cutouts instead of characters. The power of Christ compels you!

The Last Exorcism is now playing in cinemas nationwide.
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If you've seen The Last Exorcism, why not leave a comment on the film and/or my review? If by any chance you've seen it twice, tell me if I'm wrong about the ending. Believe me, I don't just mellow as much as I have about any old shitty ending.

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

Alternative Vote

As something of a regular disclaimer, it's only my opinion here- others are available. As ever, mild spoilers may occur in the process of reviewing, but never so far as to spoil any major plot developments.

Did anyone else get a nasty surprise at their local cinema this past weekend? It seems the film where women sink to men's level rather than prove themselves strong and independent is on four screens in Cineworld Middlesbrough. Troubling, but as the great Dr. Kermode says, it's not specific to anyone, and stupid people of all genders, ages and sexual persuasions can enjoy Sex and the City. For sensible people everywhere, there are alternatives- The Losers and [REC] 2.
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Based on the Vertigo comic series, The Losers are a crack force of commandos framed for a crime they didn't commit. Yes, it goes there- the comics actually satirise The A-Team to some extent, which would be less conspicuous if there weren't a film version of that series due out in July, being advertised before this one in cinemas. Anyhoo, at the top of the plot, our heroes survive an assassination attempt by their handler, Max, and go into hiding. They're galvanised to get revenge by the appearance of Aisha, who knows Max's whereabouts.

Yes, comparisons to The A-Team loom large, but it needs to be said, this is what Joe Carnahan should have done with the upcoming blockbuster. Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper and Sharlto Copley are all promising, and if Carnahan's film is half as fun as The Losers, we'll have no problems whatsoever. What so few action directors seem able to carry off these days is a film that's cheesy without being stupid, silly without patronising the audience, and for most of this film, you'll have a whale of a time.

Are there problems with it? Bucketloads. For one thing, it feels like someone at some stage decided to scale the film right back, looping a lead around its neck and letting it bark at the audience without any real bite. The 12A certificate neuters the film somewhat, and after a really dark and unsettling twist around five minutes in, the script reclines into juxtaposing a cock-fighting scene with the bloodless violence of the rest of the film. It can't keep a straight face long enough to be taken seriously, but neither is it parodic enough to be an outright satire.


On balance, this is a modestly budgeted run at blockbuster success too. It cost $25 million to make, but that makes the obvious if implacable presence of the studio leash only more disappointing. It doesn't try to innovate all that much. Oh, and it's not a spoiler to say so, but leaving things open for a sequel sometimes works. In the case of The Losers, it means leaving the story largely incomplete, departing with an ominous note that's instantly undercut by a nice post-script and a slapstick post-post-script before the credits. I don't think it's quite made enough at the box office to deliver on that promised sequel either.

What sets it apart from louder and worse directed fare is its performances. As Max, Jason Patric is more or less a Bond villain of the 1990s variety, played for laughs, and somehow he still fits perfectly into a tonally uneven film. He shares most of the film's laughs with Chris Evans. Somewhere along the line, the strapping and charismatic Evans actually pulls off the loveless dork role, giving a great comic performance that makes you wonder why he's not a bigger star yet. To tell you about any of his funny scenes would be to divulge the best punchlines in the whole film. A far cry from leads Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Zoe Saldana, who are both playing characters viciously wronged by Max, but they largely trot through the script with only the merest modicum of passion and interest.

The Losers comes out as the boisterous guilty pleasure that it is on account of its sense of humour and the acting from Patric and Evans. There's next to nothing new about it and it's generic in some of the worst ways imaginable. It deals in MacGuffins and stock characters, but bloody hell, it was lively. So many other straight-to-DVD actioners or rushed out studio tentpole features are more feeble than this, and it kept me amused throughout. If Carnahan can flesh out the bare bones on show here in time for The A-Team proper, it'll be one of the best films of the year. If not, there's always The Losers. Or The Expendables, maybe.

The Losers is now playing in cinemas nationwide.
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You've seen The Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield and Paranormal Activity. If not all of them, at least one, I'll bet. The "found footage" sub-genre of horror has been getting a thorough workout lately, and now directors Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza return with a sequel to one of the most well-received examples, [REC] 2. You may take it as read that there will be spoilers for [REC] from here on out. Starting just fifteen minutes after the chilling conclusion to the first film, Plaza and Balagueró pick up with a four man SWAT team being sent into the quarantined apartment building full of possessed "zombies". They're led by a gung-ho priest who insists that their mission, above all else, is to secure a sample of possessed blood in order to create an antidote to er... the Devil.

It's a comparison I made about the Weeping Angels episodes of Doctor Who a few weeks back, but [REC] 2 is to [REC] what Aliens is to Alien. It broadens the scope of the original, and thus your enjoyment will very much depend on whether you liked the religious twist at the end of the first film. It's back in a big way here, accumulating nods to James Cameron's film with its team of grunts, as well as both The Exorcist and John Carpenter's The Thing. It's not the most original film ever, but it is expertly and ruthlessly executed.

One thing that seems to have been dispensed with since the first film is the character development, and we're instead given four pretty indistinct SWAT guys under the command of Jonathan Mellor's excellent Dr. Owen. The man behind the camera this time around, Rosso, inherits a problem from his predecessor in [REC], Pablo. He's never really a character, often remaining mute to document what the on-screen characters are doing instead. I think the only film that's got around this problem is Cloverfield, in which Hud is likeable and always present even though he rarely turns the camera on himself.

These are merely minor problems with [REC] 2 in the grand scheme of things, and I found it to be a blast. If character development falls by the wayside, it's because the writers and directors are driving forward with the muscular mythology that bulks up the threat of the first film to something much more frightening without explaining it away entirely. To detractors, I'd say that I'm an atheist too, but I still enjoyed the religious terror at work here. There is the aforementioned debt to The Exorcist, but where the filmmakers excel, as they did with [REC], is in innovatively treating material you've seen before.

To come back to Aliens again, it should be said to avoid disappointing anyone that [REC] 2 simply isn't as outright terrifying as the first film, but it's just as exhilarating. Minute for minute, it probably held my interest better than [REC], as well as most other films I saw this year. Erring more on the side of action, it is brutal and pared down to the bone in a way that keeps the thrills consistent throughout its running time. Its biggest achievement is not merely surpassing the original, but in also standing as a perfect companion to it- both are fairly short and crying out to be watched as a double bill by avid fans. If the sequel hook embedded in this one's killer ending is followed up, let's hope it makes for an excellent trilogy.

It won't please everyone, but [REC] 2 is that rarest of beasts- a horror sequel that at the very least matches its predecessor for quality. It seems churlish to complain about characters being given less attention in a film that kept me on the edge of my seat while still caring about what happened to our protagonists. World cinema continues to dominate the field in the horror genre with a smart and exhilarating sequel. Roll on [REC] 3.

[REC] 2 is now playing in selected cinemas nationwide.
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If you've seen The Losers or [REC] 2 and want to share your thoughts on the films and/or my reviews, why not comment below. If you want to accuse me of being sexist for dismissing that other film, I refer you to Mark Kermode and Lindy West- don't waste my time with a comment.

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.