This Activity just got Paranormaler

A lot of people didn't, but I thought Paranormal Activity was very spooky. It had a nice build of atmosphere and actual progression of a plot, and damn effective use of silences, and it was well staged and the original ended better than the latter release...

I heard good things about PA2, so definitely planned on checking it out. And so I did.

Um... no.

This is a prequel to PA1, and sets up lots of elements that, I'm pretty sure, contradict most of the established history of PA1. (Note: PA2 was done by a different production team than PA1, so that isn't surprising.) The problem is, and this is a big problem... it's all set up! As this leads into PA1, it has to not complete destroy that, and so the pay off is extremely delayed. Where the first actually had weirdness and spent a lot of time discussing it and upping the stakes, this one just has a very slow build that oh so slowly builds... and then builds a little more... then adds a tiny fraction more build... then explodes in the last twenty minutes... and I have no idea what actually happens, as where the one static camera in the first one meant the action had to be staged to be clear to it, there are more cameras in this one and it's not at all evident what is actually taking place, and... did they win? What did they do? I'm not sure...

All in all, I'd say this was a failure... although the monetary recoup the movie's already made probably ensues a PA3... unfortunately.

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