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When 'Paranormal Activity' first hit our screens, it was thrilling enough to scare the pants off most people. It was a revolutionary idea - much like 'The Blair Witch Project' before it, it was so utterly terrifying because nobody quite knew what to expect. Now, on its fifth outing, 'Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones', the same can no longer be said.
It's 2012. Jesse (Andrew Jacobs) and his friends, Hector (Jorge Diaz) and Marisol (Gabrielle Walsh), decide to provoke Anna (Gloria Sandoval), Jesse's strange neighbour who is commonly referred to as a "bruja" by the Mexican families. She's killed, and Jesse finds himself developing strange abilities. It's not long before he begins acting strangely, and as Hector and Marisol investigate what has happened to their friend, they discover he's not the only one acting so abnormally.
Found footage films aren't uncommon these days. Plot-wise, 'The Marked Ones' has borrowed substantially from the 2012 film 'Chronicle' (teenagers discovering they have powers and misusing them until something goes terribly awry). There's nothing unique about the way this film is shot; everything here is taken from Jesse's handheld camera and a GoPro, without a singular thought outside the box. There's nothing new here, just the same old formula.
This film contains a few throwbacks to the previous films, but there's no great revelations, and certainly nothing to tie the mess of a plot together. There are a lot of concepts thrown in here, but without any real reason, and much of the storyline seems completely redundant by the time we reach the conclusion.
The biggest flaw with this film is simple: it just isn't scary.
The biggest flaw with this film is simple: it just isn't scary. For those punters looking to spend $17ish dollars to wet their pants, they won't come close to that satisfaction. What made the original film so successful was the disembodied entity and the thought that this could happen in your home. 'Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones' borders on the ludicrous, and isn't likely to send anyone screaming out of the cinema.
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