noises in night vision.

Paranormal Activity 2 (*)

Paramount

Dir: Tod Williams

Str: Sprague Graydon, Molly Ephraim, Katie Featherston

In retrospect, I can say only one good thing about 2009's Paranormal Activity, it had a really great trailer, maybe one of the best I've ever seen. The trailer was so good in fact, that it had most people scared out of their minds before they even sat down in the theater, and it's a good thing because if you didn't come to the theater already scared, Paranormal Activity had nothing to offer. I think I remember giving it some credit for ingenuity, I was probably just being nice, but I can't give the 2010 sequel any credit at all.

Like the original, Paranormal Activity 2 presents itself as real found footage, from a series of security cameras this time, and opens with the words "Paramount Pictures would like to thank the families of the deceased, and the Carlsbad police department", or something like that. In what world would the police allow a movie studio to charge admission to watch video of a murder?! The whole notion is ridiculous, but might be ignored if you didn't put it on screen, in writing at the head of the film. 5 seconds in, and I'm already annoyed.

If you will recall the first film followed the haunting of a home owned by Katie and Micah (pronounced Meeka). Most of Paranormal Activity 2 takes place around two months prior to the first film and follows the family of Kristi, Katie's sister, as they are tormented by a similar evil presence. I think the ghost,which I guess is technically a demon but who really cares, must be on a greatest hits tour because he's sticking to just the classics in this one, you know what I mean, doors closing, pots and pans rattling, and of course, that old favorite, creepy footstep noises. The man of the house, Daniel, reacts to this the exact same way every man has ever reacted in a haunted house movie, by refusing to believe it and telling everyone to shut up.

The pacing of the film is absolutely deadly. Something happens at night, everybody talks about it the next day. Something happens at night, everybody talks about it the next day. There are no real scares in the movie, but the one jump comes when something "scary" actually happens when the sun is out. It's this one exception that really proves just how predictable the rest of the film is. The psychology of the characters is also bizarre. Of course they don't leave the house 30 minutes into the film like any sane person would, but that's to be expected. What really sends this film into truly rare levels of stupidity is the climax, which features a character making perhaps the most drastic, brash decision I've ever seen made by anyone in a movie, ever.

I have one more piece of evidence to present in an attempt to prove just how dull Paranormal Activity 2 is. When I was looking for still images to put at the head of my review, the one above is the best one I could find (which should already tell you something), but I couldn't remember seeing it in the movie. After some searching I realized what I should have known all along. I couldn't remember this image, this image that on it's own is probably more menacing than anything else in Paranormal Activity 2, because it's not from the movie. It's from the trailer.