PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2

The first Paranormal Activity scared the bejesus out of me when I saw in cinemas. I was visiting a pal, we went to see a spooky movie and I was staying at his place that night, and neither of us could sleep post-movie. Spent the night with the lights on, terrified an invisible demon would drag us out of bed. So we stayed up and watched Rage. And that’s the story of the first time I ever heard Mumford & Sons sing Little Lion Man.

I also caught Paranormal Activity 2 at the theatre with a couple of work colleagues (Regent Cinemas in Ballarat, truly my favourite cinema in the country, go see a movie in Cinema 1, what a treat, Google image it if you've never been). My work chums wanted to sit in the very front row. To me, the front row is the part of the cinema reserved for people who have never been to a movie before and who want to hurt their neck. Or psychopaths. So, like a normal person I said, “You two sit here, I’ll sit on my own at the back, I am not sitting in the front row.” I didn’t tell them the real reason was because I knew I’d get scared and I didn’t want them to see me jump.

If there is one thing the Paranormal Activities do, it’s make an audience jump. They are jump scare machines. You press play, and you’ll be hit with four or five “WAH!” moments by the end of the ninety minutes. They’re found footage movies and because the film is often a lot of security camera footage, there’s always a moment or two where you just know something is out of frame and will all of a sudden be in frame and that will make you jump back in fright.

In Paranormal Activity 2 we meet Kristi, her husband Daniel and their kids. We soon learn Kristi is the sister of Katie, the main character from the first film who ended up possessed by that unseen demon. It takes place almost side by side with the events of the first film. As the franchise drags on the mythology around these two sisters gets spread thinner and thinner, but thankfully in 1 and 2 it’s all pretty straight forward. There’s an invisible presence in this house that makes things go bump in the night and that’s pretty scary.

How would I fit into the world of Paranormal Activity 2? As the conceit of the film is that it’s pieced together from a mixture of handheld and security camera footage taken over a series of weeks at Kristi and Daniel’s house, I don’t see why one of Kristi’s friends from work wouldn’t pop by.