They introduced time travel.

Seriously.

Let that sink in.

Beyond that, the ending's neat and the leads are fun, but ditching the PARANORMAL ACTIVITY aesthetic means this is a very conventional found-footage horror flick, and not a particularly inspired one. There are certainly less jumps here than in even PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4.

Where do they time travel to?

the first movie

Does this have a lot to do with the original films or is it actually a spin off? I've heard it's a sequel, then I heard it's a spin off. I don't know who to believe. And does it answer questions from the previous movies?

It's a spin-off in the sense that it ditches the stationary cam and becomes a very typical found-footage flick, but the third act connects heavily to two of the other movies.

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY THE MARKED ONES

I think Marked Ones accomplishes what it set out to do. It provides scares and jumps. That's all these PA films have been about and that's what makes them right. You know what to expect going in so you can't be crying about the abrupt endings after it's over like I recently heard last night. Why would some of the audience moan and groan when the film is just like the first 4. C'mon now people. I did like the new ethnic turn for the film. I thought that opens it up to other ethnicities while continuing the overall story which they incorporated as well. The scares were good for me and had me jump a couple times and that's a success. I closed my eyes on one occassion. I think I'm getting a bit weak with these scare films lately.

Grade - B

Though it is not as complete and well-crafted as the first or third films in the franchise/profit-generating machine, the latest Paranormal Activity film has its fair share of clever twists and potent frights and, in general, satisfied me and ensured my continued investment in the overall storyline. There are a few stylistic and thematic variations here: focused on a Latino teenager who becomes involved in the vast demons-and-witches conspiracy which threads the five (and counting) films together, this entry is set in an urban apartment complex in Southern California rather than than a single-family home in a comfortable and largely white suburban development. It is also, in regard to visual presentation, more of a conventional, Blair Witch indebted found-footage film, with the characters holding a camera rather than placing smaller ones around their home and reviewing the surveillance later.

In other ways, though, this is very much Paranormal Activity 5, even though another film titled Paranormal Activity 5 will come out in ten months. It expands upon and, at times, upends the overarching mythology, so it is a must-see for fans, devoted or even casual. Paramount executives may have thought, "Oh, no, this is just the extraneous one to indulge the Mexican American audience, so let's not give it a numeric title and a proper place in the canon," but the memo did not reach the direct creative team. As for elements which elevate and recommend this as a viable entertainment in and of itself, they include a charming band of characters with whom it is easy to sympathize, neat and playful sequences in which the protagonist at first enjoys the supernatural powers he receives after coming into contact with the ambiguous demon (the Paranormal Activity version of a superhero origin story), and a wild final 20 minutes which, in a pleasant way, go nuts and change the dynamic of the entire saga, maybe.

B

What in this film upends the mythology? The time traveling door? All of the marked/coven stuff has been used in earlier films.

As if time travel is not enough. Introducing an ability to travel in time (and to different places) on the part of the coven would presumably be a big deal going forward, particularly in a franchise so focused on timelines and ancestry.

I actually doubt it will come up again as PA5 is the first sequel not written by Chris Landon.

Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones

Hmm, it is ok I guess. It was cool. Just not scary until the end (before the first film crossover) with the witch house. But there was some cool stuff on display. It was a shame that we didn't see any actual paranormal activity (like we had in the other movies). Instead it was just a kid getting possessed and he could do neat stuff. Eh, I don't know, I don't feel as good about this one as I felt about the petrifying first three movies.

Oh, by the way, every female in this is either really ugly/old or a babe (so many hot Latinas in this film).

C+

Maybe I didn't pick up on something, but is it really time travel, though? I didn't see anything that told me the events of this film were way before or after the events of the first film. Couldn't it just have happened at the same time? In which case it would be teleportation, not time travel.

And even if it is time travel, what's the big fucking deal? If you watch a movie and you're fine with accepting witchcraft and demons, then time travel surely shouldn't be so difficult to overcome.