Amph Paranormal Activity (original, sequels & spin-offs)

Well, none of the new characters are (though I guess the daughter might come closest, but nowhere near as bad), but this sequel is primarily a prequel, so Micah shows up a couple times. Does that count?

 

New trailer for PA4 is out.



The carrying-laptop-around concept seems even less plausible than the camera one, but at least it's different. Also, another great example of how the Kinect is great for anything other than actually playing video games with .

 

I actually recall finding the second one the scariest (the whole staircase dragging thing in particular) but I think 3 did a good job of doing new things with the premise, especially considering the chronological technology restrictions.

I am glad that 4 is moving forward though, instead of being a sidequel or prequel.

 

I thought the security cameras approach was the most logical of all the film's found footage premises, actually.

The Hispanic woman wasn't entirely a cliche though- she was more of a fill-in for the Preist from the first film; their token "religious person can sense the demon" role rather than a specific racial cliche.

 

A few years back at work we got robbed. By the next week we had 20-30 security cameras installed. Now, granted, that's a business not a residence, but I don't see it being an over the top reaction for a family that clearly could afford it.

 

I've only ever seen the films in theaters, so it's been a couple years since I saw PA2, but didn't they think they were robbed? Or, at the very least, think someone trashed/squatted in their place while they were away?

 

We usually just add the sequels into the titles of a lot of franchise threads when they're announced. 1, 2 & 3 were already in the title already, so I added 4, etc. Other franchises we just keep generic.

Some need it (Resident Evil, for example, to distinguish between the games, films and animated movies), some don't (The Chronicles of Riddick). Other threads its simply because a thread for a sequel was made before one for the series (Jurassic Park IV).

It also helped prevent people from making a redundant, separate thread for a sequel that doesn't need it's own thread (as opposed to something that will get a ton of discussion and could support it's own thread for each installment, ie: the Marvel films, Pirates films, Hobbit/LOTR, etc).

 

Paranormal Activity 4 was disappointing. It's nowhere near as good as the first three. And not very scary, either. There's a few clever bits but they don't have the impact of their counterparts in the prior films. There's also no key sequence of sustained terror like the last two had. Ending isn't too bad.

Still, unlike the previous films, I can't really recommend this one, even though it does have some likeable characters. I think it's just because they didn't use the demon as much this time around (then again, they almost over-used him in PA3, so maybe they were trying to balance things out?).

 

Well, there's two new movies in the works: they've green-lit both Paranormal Activity 5 (not a surprise, given the dangling plot threads left to be resolved and the high profit ratio of the box office performance, even if it is less than the previous sequels), as well as the Latino spin-off (a Latino setting, same demon, mix of English and Spanish dialogue) that was teased in a brief clip after the credits of PA4.

The spin-off will be directed by the writer of the three sequels and will be hitting in the spring. PA5's director/writer haven't been announced yet and will be hitting Halloween (as usual)..

In addition to this, though this is not new news per se, it was the first I had read about it, but apparently there was also an unofficial sequel to PA made in Japan called Paranormal Activity 2: Tokyo Night (though international releases have dropped the number from the title), dealing with someone getting into a car accident with Katie (presumably in Tokyo) and the demon following that character afterwards.

So, given all those additions, Jabba-Wocky's earlier comments kinda come into play as far as the title starting to get ridiculous, so I've gone and edited it to something more general.