Michael Elliott
Senior HTF Member
There was a pretty big crowd for an early Friday matinee but it seems like everyone walked out disappointed. I'm not sure if Paramount plans to turn this series into something we get a new entry in every few years but hopefully future entries will be better.
Paranormal Activity 2 (2010)
Tod Williams
The original film pretty much came out of nowhere and struck a core with people who made it one of the surprise hits of the year. There's probably a pretty good shot that this sequel will make a lot of money but I can't help but think back to when I was walking out of the original movie thinking what a masterpiece I had just seen and before I hit the exit door I just knew they were going to try and cash in with a sequel. So, here we are and in the current film a happy couple bring home a new baby to their home that they share with another daughter. Soon they experience a break-in so they set up cameras to try and capture who did it if they try again. Sure enough something is going on but it's not human. I'm one who loved the original film as I thought it was masterful in building up great suspense and it worked because each new scene contained even more suspense than the previous one. This movie here is clearly just trying to match the power of the first movie and in the end it falls flat on its face for the most part. There are way too many "BOOM" moments where they try to scare us by having something fall or throwing a loud noise at us. I think the majority of people watching this film are going to be use to this type of movie so these cheap tricks aren't going to work. Each time one of these scenes happen you just sit there rolling your eyes. Another problem is that I never really felt we were watching actual footage of anything. Films like the first movie and THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT make you feel like you're watching real footage but that really didn't happen here. Perhaps it's because there were so many cameras being used including scenes where multiple shots were used. Finally, the biggest and saddest problem is that the movie simply isn't very scary. I will admit that there's one terrific scene dealing with the mom trying to reach her child but this is pretty much the only sequence that matches anything in the original. We're given two endings to this film but neither one works and the final stuff just comes off incredibly lame, un-scary and boring. I'm not sure if we'll eventually see some alternate endings but the film certainly needed one. I think the actors, for the most part, did a good job in their roles and especially Sprague Grayden who plays the mother. The characters from the first film are worked into the story here but the twist just didn't work for me. PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2 is like so many films that follow up great movies in that there's no real imagination and instead we're basically given a rehash of the previous film. There are a few good moments scattered throughout but in the end this comes as a major disappointment.
Paranormal Activity 2 (2010)
Tod Williams
The original film pretty much came out of nowhere and struck a core with people who made it one of the surprise hits of the year. There's probably a pretty good shot that this sequel will make a lot of money but I can't help but think back to when I was walking out of the original movie thinking what a masterpiece I had just seen and before I hit the exit door I just knew they were going to try and cash in with a sequel. So, here we are and in the current film a happy couple bring home a new baby to their home that they share with another daughter. Soon they experience a break-in so they set up cameras to try and capture who did it if they try again. Sure enough something is going on but it's not human. I'm one who loved the original film as I thought it was masterful in building up great suspense and it worked because each new scene contained even more suspense than the previous one. This movie here is clearly just trying to match the power of the first movie and in the end it falls flat on its face for the most part. There are way too many "BOOM" moments where they try to scare us by having something fall or throwing a loud noise at us. I think the majority of people watching this film are going to be use to this type of movie so these cheap tricks aren't going to work. Each time one of these scenes happen you just sit there rolling your eyes. Another problem is that I never really felt we were watching actual footage of anything. Films like the first movie and THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT make you feel like you're watching real footage but that really didn't happen here. Perhaps it's because there were so many cameras being used including scenes where multiple shots were used. Finally, the biggest and saddest problem is that the movie simply isn't very scary. I will admit that there's one terrific scene dealing with the mom trying to reach her child but this is pretty much the only sequence that matches anything in the original. We're given two endings to this film but neither one works and the final stuff just comes off incredibly lame, un-scary and boring. I'm not sure if we'll eventually see some alternate endings but the film certainly needed one. I think the actors, for the most part, did a good job in their roles and especially Sprague Grayden who plays the mother. The characters from the first film are worked into the story here but the twist just didn't work for me. PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2 is like so many films that follow up great movies in that there's no real imagination and instead we're basically given a rehash of the previous film. There are a few good moments scattered throughout but in the end this comes as a major disappointment.
