Great. More creepy children.
You might have noticed something strange about October this year. That’s right: there’s been no Paranormal Activity film this year! What began as a Halloween tradition to replace the Saw franchise has apparently fizzled out of existence. Or has it?
A couple of days ago, a trailer was released online for the up-coming Paranormal Activity spinoff film entitled Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones. Give it a watch below.
The trailer shows the same ol’ story that we’ve come to expect from the franchise: there’s a party in a block of flats; a woman dies in the flat below the party; some young virile people explore (with a camcorder…*sigh*) the dead woman’s apartment; they find creepy stuff; one of them starts experiencing…wait for it…paranormal activity! And they’ve thrown in some creepy kids, a weird Latino séance and more shaky footage.
At first I thought that this is the end. The franchise has gone kaput. If you’ve seen my post ‘Paranormal Activity 5: What They Should Do Next‘ you’ll see that they’ve pretty much done the exact opposite of every single one of my points. Geez, did they not read my article?!
But, as many people on the Internet have pointed out, this could be the ‘umph’ that the franchise needs. The producers of The Marked Ones have explicitly stated that this film is NOT Paranormal Activity 5 and that we can expect that (fingers crossed) October 2014. Personally, I think it’s a good thing they’re keeping the two films separate. See, the problem I had with PA4 is that to me it seemed lazy. It seemed as though the producers were desperately trying to think of a way of advancing the ‘Katie/Hunter/Kristie’ story but through a new pair of eyes. There was no character development as the scriptwriters knew the audience were more concerned about the main story arc than what was happening to the other characters. So by the time it got to the woefully inadequate ending I just sat there thinking to myself ‘Oh no, that blonde girl might be captured…meh.’ (N.B. I genuinely had to Google the name of the blonde girl in PA4: turns out it’s Alex). By making a spinoff, they can tell a new story (about characters that we will, hopefully, care at least a little about by the end of the film) whilst weaving in the central ‘Katie/Hunter/Kristie/demons/weird women/Toby’ storyline. At least, that’s what I’m hoping for.
I really hope that each one of these VHS tapes is a potential spinoff…
In terms of relating back to the ‘main’ franchise, it seems as though The Marked Ones is doing this very well (that’s what I can gather from the trailer). There are quite a lot of references to Katie/Kristie and their shenanigans. Just look at those two creepy black-eyed girls above – they look an awful lot like Katie and Kristie from PA3. Remember Ali from PA2? The daughter that was away whilst the climax of the film took place? Well she’s back! I’m not entirely sure how the two storylines will weave into one another, but I certainly look forward to finding out!
Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones will be released in cinemas January 2014.
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Let me know what you think of the trailer, and whether or not you’re looking forward to cowering behind your hands when you go to watch this at the cinema.
Tom
