Paranormal Activity 2 (2010)

Ruh-Roh

I watch many different kinds of movies, but by far, my favorite genre is horror.  I love them all, from the classics, cheap scares, B-list (love the cheesy blood and terrible acting), torture porn (see Captivity and the Hostels), the Saw movies (to an extent... I've seen them all, but buried my face through the last handful... they are just awful),  the remakes (that I bitch and complain about all the way through, yet I still watch them), and the under-the-radar ones.  Like Paranormal Activity.  I was intrigued by that movie when a friend showed me the trailer on Youtube.  So I went to the site and "demanded" it.  It was eventually released in my area, and I saw it.  And had the shit scared out of me.  The fact that they spent almost no money making it (like $15,000) and created something so terrifying that even I was hearing "suspicious" noises that night and investigating my entire apartment.  I tell you about my love of horror and the extent of the movies I watch to show it is not easy to scare me.  Even if a movie gets a cheap "Oh shit!" out of me, that moment is gone as soon as I laugh it off, and certainly doesn't stay with me after the credits roll.

When Paranormal Activity 2 was released, I was excited.  Now I have mixed feelings on sequels, especially if I loved the first one.  It can either be more of the same awesome from the first one (which is great), or try so hard to be as awesome as the first one that it is a major fail.  It didn't take long into this movie to figure out which category it fit into.  In PA1, they used creepy build-ups instead of having something pop right out at you for a cheap scare.  And by the end of the movie, I actually cared what happened to Micah and Katie.  I didn't want her to go batshit crazy and kill him.  Sorry for the spoiler on that one.  Actually, if you haven't seen it by now, you probably never will... so fuck you.  Get spoiled.

Paranormal Activity 2 starts off much like the first one did, with a little buildup to the characters you will soon witness being terrorized.   You meet the proud new mother and father (Kristi and Daniel) a newborn infant (Hunter), a teenaged daughter (Ali, from another mother), and the family dog.  Then you see our old friends Katie (who is Kristi's sister) and Micah, which is confusing at first, but PA2 takes place before, during, and then after the events that Katie and Micah experienced.  It also explains a lot of the questionable decision making done in the first one, especially from Katie.

So the family comes home from Hunter's birthday party, and their house has been trashed.  According to non-believer Dan, someone got into the house even though all doors and windows were locked, trashed almost every room (except for Hunter's), yet couldn't find anything in there to steal, so they just left.  Jewelry, TVs, computers... all were left in tact and where they were.  So he does what any person would do and installs 24-hour surveillance cameras on almost every square inch of the house, so if anyone tries to pull shenanigans again, he will see the perp.  This is a believable reason why everything is being filmed, and from so many angles which is nice, although it is kinda silly.  It also adds a level of reason as to why these people aren't sprinting as far away as possible after things start happening.  They don't watch the video every morning like Micah did in the first one.  They actually don't watch it that much at all.

In addition to the security cameras, the family also uses a handheld camera, which is mostly used to show Ali, the daughter, Google freaky shit online about demons, and show Daniel being an idiot regarding the obvious strange occurrences in his house.  It's an interesting perspective and is definitely a change of pace from the overhead-view security cameras.  During tense parts, I often found my eyes darting around the screen, frantically searching for the next sign of the paranormal.  It got exhausting after a while.    

The family's nanny seems to realize the family is fucked way before any of them do.  She blesses the house regularly with her "voodoo," something that doesn't sit well with Dan, who is obviously more idiotic than Micah (and that's saying something).  Dan fires her for "endangering the baby" or something stupid like that, and shortly after, shit starts going down.  It starts really slow, with noises and the vacuum seemingly jumping out the pool on a nightly basis.

The action mostly revolves around Hunter, the infant, and Abby, the dog.  They are focused on something in the corner that only they can see, or something is making Hunter cry and Abby is acting as a good dog should and attempting to protect her family.  It's convenient for the filmmakers to pull this card, using two characters that can't talk as their main people to fuck with, but also works for us as an audience.  Let's face it... babies are creepy.  More on that later.

Soon, other family members start realizing there's something shady going on.  Kristi has experienced something like this before with her sister Katie, who she turns to for advice.  Obviously, Katie doesn't handle the paranormal very well (just ask Micah), so she's not much help.  She basically tells Kristi to ignore it and it will go away.  Yeah bitch, tell that to your dead boyfriend.  Later, Kristi experiences what is probably the biggest "Oh shit!" moment of the entire movie, yet ignores it because her stupid ass sister told her to.  Flash forward a little more and the demon shows Kristi it doesn't take too kindly to being ignored.  

I won't tell you the ending, but I will tell you it pissed me off.  It was cheap, and especially considering how slowly the rest of the movie built up, it was incredibly rushed.  Add that to the fact that it was left wide open for a Paranormal Activity 3, and I was left with a WTF feeling that didn't go away.  Sure, there were some creepy moments (levitating baby, anyone?) but overall it felt rushed and, most importantly, didn't leave me with the fear and doubt the first one did.  Was it a bad movie?  Not really.  It just doesn't live up to the first one and therefore left me with a bitter taste in my mouth.

6 out of 10