Low Budget and Popular? "Paranormal Activity 2" Review

The first Paranormal Activity movie set the bar on "fauxumentaries" by making them popular again. It did this by recording an everyday house that's haunted by a demon, and giving it a twist ending, though one that a child probably did in Adobe Photoshop... CS1. With its popularity, no doubt was a sequel going to be made, such was the case with The Blair Witch Project, a movie that inspired people to film up their faces while snot ran down their noses.

As gross as that image is, in my opinion, its still better than Paranormal Activity, mainly because if you paid attention to the movie, a plot hole becomes perfectly clear: If demons don't get attached to people, why is it attached to a person? Maybe that's why it's scary? I don't know. Frankly, I found it dull and amateurish. Oh, and atrociously boring. Yet, save for being dead tired and slightly stressed out, I was actually excited about the second movie. Finally, I don't have to waste mustard by boiling it with water to make myself nauseous!

There is exactly one good thing I can say about Paranormal Activity 2: it's actually better than the first movie. I can say this because, unlike the first movie, this actually had one scary moment. Seriously, it has exactly one! Most of the movie is either talking of jump scares that anyone who watches a lot of horror movies can see a mile away. Is there any horror fan out there who is still scared by jump scares, though? Surprisingly, the one scary scene in the movie is a jump scare, but is only scary because you're expecting something else in the jump scare line. The reason you're expecting that, too, because the same scene happens every five minutes. Another scene is repeated a lot: the same shot of the swimming pool vacuum cleaner. The same exact shot.

I know the movie is low budget, but stock footage? Really? Another scene has two teenagers talking while on white towels. Look closely towards the bottom edge of the screen, and you'll see a flat edge that flutters. That flat edge is a page from the script. What's more is that the movie features the return of the two main characters from the first movie, including stock footage from the first (which makes sense in context to the movie). We're supposed to take this seriously, yet one can't help but notice that one of the characters put on fifty pounds between the end of the first movie and a scene in this one (which would be roughly three hours). Even harder to avoid is the fact that every young woman in this movie wears a low cut shirt. The movie could have had the title Paranormal Activity 2: Cleavage, and it would have made sense.

The story is made weak by the fact that they explain why the events of this movie and the first movie are happening. The reason does make sense, until you think back to how certain characters in the first movie didn't know about it, but they had to have known because they were told in this one, which is a prequel. It seriously doesn't help that the dog and baby are the most interesting characters in the movie, because everyone else is incompetent or boring. Even the events happening to the family are pretty bland, relying on the same parlor tricks over and over, or in one instance, teeth from a gumball machine. The only way it could be scary is if you had a homeless bum wearing them.

If you really want a scary movie, how's this? A fake documentary that takes place in a house where one room has a guy standing in the corner, who everyone ignores, through out the whole movie until the last ten minutes. In the last ten minutes, he disappears, and the husband of the house is killed. When the police ask the family how it happened, the family mentions that maybe Henry did it. So, they knew he was there? Who was he? Why was he there? Was he kidnapped and forced to stand there? Was he demented, or was the family? What's wrong with this picture? It's a bad idea, but it's still better than Paranormal Activity 2.