Film Review: Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones

In the midst of all the Academy Award nominees being released, I took it upon myself to forgo all of the nominated masterpieces and see Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones. The Marked Ones is the fifth installment of the "Paranormal Activity" franchise, and much like the first four, it raised way more questions than it answered.

But first, this was no ordinary trip to the cinema for me. It marks the first time in my 23-plus years of existence that I ventured to see a movie by myself. I picked an 11:50 showing on a Thursday morning, so not surprisingly I was the only person there. I sat all the way in the back of the smallest theater, ate my popcorn and talked to myself throughout the movie. It was a strange, strange, STRANGE feeling. In a way, I felt like a rich guy with his own movie theater.

But I digress...

As you probably figured out from the trailers, The Marked Ones takes on a whole new cast of people. Instead of Katie Featherston, Micah Sloat and others, it stars a completely different family from California.

The movie follows the main character Jesse (Andrew Jacobs) and his friends Hector (Jorge Diaz) and Marisol (Gabrielle Walsh) as they try to figure out why Jesse has been possesed by a demon.

I don't consider myself an avid fan of the Paranormal Activity franchise. I thought the first movie was pretty clever for what it was. Since then, it's basically been four movies with the same stuff happening over and over again. Each movie has had certain elements to separate it from the other ones, but they are all basically the same. The only reason I keep coming back is so I can understand the events of the preceding movies.

- Why does Katie own a house in the fourth movie? And how did she obtain a kid?
- Where the hell is Hunter?
- Why is all of the stuff even happening? (this question is briefly answered in The Marked Ones)

With every movie comes more and more questions. This last movie probably brought up the most.

Like the Saw franchise, these movies will continue to drag on for years to come. But, I'll keep seeing them.

In conclusion, there were some elements in The Marked Ones that made it different than the other films in the series. As I said before, this movie raised a lot more questions that I simply want answers to. That will be enough to keep me coming back for more movies.

Hopefully they will actually make their Halloween-time deadline this year. Watching one of these movies in the middle of January is a little pointless.

Final Rating: 2/5 Stars