It adds to the established continuity and ties together some lingering plot strands form earlier instalments without getting bogged down in the over-arcing mythology of the franchise, with the Latino setting breathing new life into the franchise. Surprisingly, I found myself enjoying The Marked Ones more than I have any of the previous entries, with the possible exception of the first film. He and Hector have fun with these bizarre talents at first, but after an incident where an attempted mugging goes terribly wrong Jesse starts to question the intentions behind whatever is affording him these unique abilities.Įnlisting the assistance of their friend Marisol (Gabrielle Walsh), the trio soon uncover a deadly secret that links back to not only Jesse’s mother but the mothers of thousands of others like him – The Marked ones. Pretty soon some strange happenings start to plague Jesse’s daily life, with a curious bite mark appearing upon his arm and the development of some interesting abilities that he soon takes advantage of in some pretty amusing scenes. It soon transpires that Ana has been murdered by Oscar and Jesse and Hector break into the dead woman’s apartment to look for clues, discovering only more symbols of the occult and a book laden with secrets about the art of black magic, including the opening of dimensional doorways through time. Suitably weirded out by what they saw, the duo later inadvertently stumble across Oscar (Carlos Pratts), a fellow student who graduated at the top of the class, running away from Ana’s apartment. One night Hector and Jesse hear some bizarre sounds coming from Ana’s downstairs apartment, so the rig up a camera to lower down an air vent that connects the two apartments in order to spy on their enigmatic neighbour, capturing what appears to be some arcane ritual involving a naked Ana drawing ritualistic symbols on another young woman. Using a camera to document his slacker activities with best friend Hector (Jorge Diaz), the pair ride down stairs in washing baskets and generally goof off their downstairs neighbour Ana is an oddly behaving recluse, with whispers around the neighbourhood of rumours that she is a Bruja, a witch who dabbles in the black arts. The Marked Ones follows Jesse (Andrew Jacobs), freshly graduated from High School and with a lot of spare time on his hands. So, this time around, after giving the franchise a year off, we have an entry into the series that isn’t predominately focused on the storyline of Katie and Kristi, with Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones instead presenting itself as more of a “cousin” to the main franchise, a standalone entry that shares connective tissue with some elements of the main series but endeavours to tell a story that’s resolutely its own beast. Yet, the producers kept greenlighting sequels due to the massively lucrative box office the films generated compared to the costs of producing them eventually, though, things came to a head with Paranormal Activity 4, which was poorly received by both critics and audiences alike and forced the studio to re-evaluate its yearly release schedule. The first film was interesting enough, mainly due to how it managed to revitalise the found footage horror genre and generate effective scares on a shoestring budget, but overall it was much too tame and uneventful for my tastes.Īs the increasingly convoluted mythology of the series was expanded upon with each successive sequel, the series suffered from diminishing returns, arguably due to taking the story in a ridiculous direction with the addition of witches and familial curses rather than sticking with the relatively straightforward demonic possession story of the first instalment. I’ll be completely honest: The Paranormal Activity franchise has never really appealed to me.
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