Image by Laughing Squid via Flickr
Scary films are best watched at the movies, where you can relish watching other people squirm just as much as you are, and laugh together after you’ve just thrown your popcorn sky high. My best cinematic experience was Final Destination (the original) when the audience laughed together, screamed together and even shouted at the screen together, ‘No, don’t do that!’. It was collective enjoyment of a spectacle at its best, and Paranormal Activity 2 had a similar (but not as strong effect). It doesn’t so much carry on from the original but tie in, the stories run parallel to each other which gives an interesting twist on things. Christie is Katie’s (the mental girl from the original) sister. She’s just given birth to a baby boy and they’ve returned home to start a new chapter in their lives, along with daughter, Ali. A year passes, and strange things begin to happen in the house, especially to Christie and Hunter.
Overall the movie didn’t provide me with the real, terror the original did, however it did give some good demon. My feelings were mixed as there were things I liked about it and things I didn’t. It certainly wasn’t a smooth ride on the cursed train.
The acting in places seemed a little contrived. That’s not to say it was worse than the original (comparisons will always be made) as some of the acting in that was relatively weak too. To me, the dog and the little boy who played Hunter (both the newborn baby and the year old tot) were the best actors in the whole flick. Followed closely by Ali.
When you really dig down beneath the surface, the story was really just exactly the same as the original, it was almost a rehash, with a few more camera angles added in, a couple of children, and the dog. (As you can probably tell by the way I keep mentioning it, the dog really did do it for me. I actually lent over to my neighbour and whispered ‘I hope the dog doesn’t die’. I had no worries for the baby or people, the hound was the main concern for me. That goes some way into explaining my general blah-ness surrounding the movie.
Finally for the bad, there were too many days and nights. The original had something special going on for it, the suspense could be built up over many 24 hours because we didn’t know what the bejesus was coming. The demon was a surprise, but this time around that suspense is gone and in the end this was a movie that was purely about making the audience jump.
Enough of the bad – onto the good reason to spend your money going to see this sequel.
Tying in the stories of the original and the new was pretty well done. They extended the mythology that first film left unanwserd, which gave us more to go on, and more to freak out about. Also they cleared up a few random things that happened in the original where were left wondering, WTF?
There was humour. This is what I found best about this movie it garnered a response from the audience, quite similarly to that of the audience in Drag Me To Hell. At one point the father is closing in on the demon with a crucifix and a guy near me said ‘what’s he going to do? back hand her with it’, this provoked a few chuckles from those nearby. The other response it provoked was jumping. Lots of jumping,plus a bit of screaming (from both boys and . In the beginning the scares were given a comic edge, a sure sign that the film was not taking itself too seriously. Which I saw as a good thing. The kid was pretty funny as was the dog (there I go again) and there was some quite witty dialogue in there, particularly coming from the father. But as the movie went on the subject matter got way more serious with a successful shocker of an ending. I’ve run out of the good…
Urm…
Did I mention the dog?
Go and see on a busy night for a more entertaining experience.
Left Me Reeling 