![]() ![]() REVIEW: Over the years I’ve made no secret of my dislike of the PARANORMAL ACTIVITY series. When they investigate the death, they stumble upon a plot involving black magic as Jesse begins to show signs of an otherworldly possession. >Andrew Jacobs, Jorge Diaz, Gabrielle Walsh, Renee Victor, Noemi Gonzalez, David Saucedo, Gloria Sandoval, Richard Cabral, Carlos Pratts, Juan Vasquez.PLOT: Two teens- Jesse (Andrew Jacobs) and Arturo ( Richard Cabral)- are playing with their new video camera when one of their neighbors is apparently murdered by one of their classmates. Leahy visual effects supervisor, Woei Hsi Lee visual effects, Atomic Fiction special effects coordinator, Mark Gullesserian stunt coordinators, David Rowden, Charlie Croughwell assistant directors, Mark Anthony Little, Dale Stern casting, Carla Hool. Camera (color), Gonzalo Amat editor, Gregory Plotkin production designer, Nathan Amondson set decorators, Teresa Visinare, Julie Ochipinti costume designer, Marylou Lim sound (Dolby Digital/Datasat), Walter Anderson, Ed Novick, Steve Nelson re-recording mixers, Joe Dzuban, Daniel J. >Directed, written by Christopher Landon, based on the film “Paranormal Activity” by Oren Peli. >A Paramount release and presentation of a Blumhouse, Solana Films, Room 101 production. >Reviewed at Arclight Cinemas, Hollywood, Jan. A very meta twist ending promises to either open up new narrative possibilities, or else push the franchise deep into a self-referential rabbit hole, when “Paranormal Activity 5” arrives later in the year.įilm Review: ‘Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones’ The haunted-house setpieces provide reliable doses of jolts, even if one can see the scaffolding of each scare being built from miles away, and director Landon has fun with some clever camera placement here and there. Replacing the typical Ouija board with a haunted Simon game is sure to provoke howls of laughter from those in the appropriate age bracket, and the idea that a victim of demonic possession would rush to YouTube to show off his gnarly new abilities - and be promptly torn to shreds by comment-section trolls - is sadly in keeping with the times. While the film hardly plays it coy about where this is all heading, it doesn’t seem to be in a rush to get there, and it springs a number of smart ideas along the way. Being teenage boys, they’re far too intrigued by the boobs on display to fret over the obvious occult ritual taking place, but when Anna is subsequently murdered, they decide to attempt some amateur late-night sleuthing, with predictably unpleasant results. The first complication comes from Jesse’s elderly downstairs neighbor, Anna (Gloria Sandoval), whose reclusive behavior is strange enough for Hector to postulate that “maybe the bitch is a bruja.” The two attempt to spy on her by lowering a camera down through a ventilation shaft, where they witness Anna scrawling arcane symbols on the belly of a nude younger woman. Fortunately, Jacobs and Diaz boast an easy “Beavis and Butt-head”-esque chemistry throughout, making for pleasant company as the audience waits for the inevitable horrors to befall them. Seemingly possessing no greater postgrad ambitions than milling around and attempting “Jackass” stunts with their omnipresent video camera, Jesse and Hector harass Jesse’s abuela (Renee Victor), smoke pot, play basketball, occasionally run afoul of some local gangsters, draw penises on one another’s faces, and generally bust each other’s balls for a decent chunk of the film. Set in gritty Oxnard, Calif., the film boasts an almost entirely Latino cast of characters - a welcome gesture toward a huge filmgoing demographic that rarely gets to see itself onscreen - while smart casting and production design help capture the flavor of the environs with only moderate deployment of cultural stereotypes. Kicking off with a high-school graduation, “The Marked Ones” centers on likably lunkheaded teenage buddies Jesse (Andrew Jacobs) and Hector (Jorge Diaz), as well as Jesse’s tag-along relative Marisol (Gabrielle Walsh). At this point, the conventions and limitations of the found-footage horror film are almost as well worn and cliched as those of horror pics at large: “Put down the camera, stupid!” has now probably been shouted at just as many screens as “Don’t go down into the basement!” (Look for “Tilt your viewfinder 20 degrees to the left!” to finally supplant “Look out behind you!” within the present decade.) Appropriately, the hapless heroes of “The Marked Ones” never put down the camera even as they venture into dark basements, or struggle to start a stalled car, or split up in the middle of a haunted mansion - and it’s to the credit of the film’s primary cast that these bits of genre-appropriate stupidity generate more laughs than groans. ![]()
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