Taken from www.lifeaccordingtoripa.com

Paranormal Activity 2

Director: Todd Williams

Shadows, slamming doors, and moving furniture are back in the wildly anticipated Paranormal Activity 2. After the skyrocketing success of its modestly budgeted predecessor, how could they not make a second one? This time the scope is bigger, the stakes are a bit higher, but the movie still holds on to, albeit slightly, the simplicity of the first installment. PA2 is a is not a rehash of the original, but a strong step forward that lends a mythology to the franchise. Not to mention enough moments to make you jump out of your seat that you might as well stand in the theater.

This movie, which acts more like a prequel, starts out similarly to the first one. Instead of sweet suburban couple Katie and Micha, we are introduced to Katie's sister Christie and her sweet suburban family including her newborn son Hunter. After a disturbance in their home they install a series of security cameras only to find that it's not a burglar terrorizing their home, but a demonic presence.

Doors begin to slam, shadows move, and loud noises permeate the house. For the first 25 minutes of this movie I believed that I was in for the same simple scare tactics of the first movie. Then they introduce more of the history behind these sisters which they barely scratch the surface of in the original. Now we have a story. From then on the terror is increased ten fold while the family struggles to find a solution. This is where I thought they almost seamlessly tie in the events of the first Paranormal Activity making this movie more than just a sum of its parts.

That being said, there are some drawbacks. The larger scope of this movie, meaning a bigger house with more cameras had me focusing on everything but the characters if they weren't speaking. If someone walked into the kitchen, I was looking down the hallway to see if a chair was going to hit them in the back of the head. Plus this family does everything that was the wrong move in the first movie. They play with Ouija boards, they taunt the spirit, and they never flick on the lights (they must be a nocturnal people.) If you remember in the first film the couple tried calling a demonologist. Not this time, Christie is going to take this sucker down solo. My only issue with the ending was that it felt a bit rushed. It was almost as if they wanted to stay true to the short and sweet 90 minute run time of the first, and was forced to make some last minute edits. Other than that the movie was truly scary.

Final Score 3/5