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sequel

High Marks for Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones

by Dane Benko

Poster for Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones
Poster for Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones
Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones poster

Viewer beware, you are entering into the lost land of imagination, after the warmth of Hollywood’s carefully placed and critically lauded hits have faded and you settle down to bed, intending to hit up the cineplexes over the next few weeks for a bit of catch-me-up before all those award shows hit, and upon scanning the listings, have the horrifying misfortune of seeing the new releases.  It has arrived: January, Hollywood’s graveyard of zombie franchises.

And what better to start the toss off into lonely auditoriums than a new spin-off of the wildly successful Paranormal Activity series.  The Marked Ones has all the warning signs of a train wreck: they’ve stopped numbering the iterations, the release was pushed back from the franchise’s annual holding space as the go-to Halloween movie, and except for a couple announced cameos, it’s dropping the lineage of the previous installments in favor of a brand new cast.  You could almost say it was… marked… for failure?

Except I basically had all that written before I’d seen it.  It’s actually a lot of fun, and if you’re getting tired seeing the giants of Hollywood clash over golden figurines, you might as well jump in for the ride.

Helmed by franchise writer Christopher Landon, The Marked Ones follows Jesse and Hector, two best buds recently graduated from high school, staving off boredom in their run-down apartment complex by toying around with the new camera Jesse’s received for graduation.  Between smoking pot and pranking each other, the two manage to start poking their camera into places they don’t belong and end up finding a strange ritual they don’t understand performed by Anna, the old woman downstairs, who they quickly decide must be some bruja.

Which isn’t really enough to distract them from setting off fireworks and other shenanigans, until Carlos the school valedictorian shows up and offs the old lady in a spectacular manner while Jesse notices a strange mark appear on his wrist, not to mention suddenly acquires spectacular abilities of strength and levitation.  Which is all well and good for his YouTube channel until strange noises start upsetting the electronics and his behavior starts to get weird.

Paranormal Activity The Marked Ones screenshot
“Yo Mr. White, what’d you do to my eye?” Oh wait, wrong Jesse.

From there it’s all exorcisms and shaky cam as Jesse and friends venture progressively deeper into lower levels of the bruja’s hellhole and even follow up on trying to find what caused Carlos to go loco.  Ali Rey makes her appearance to provide tie-in and exposition, and the audience tries to tell the characters what not to do as they immediately proceed to do precisely that.

 

However what makes the movie really roll is the friendship between Hector, played by Jorge Diaz, and Jesse, the headlining Andrew Jacobs.  As horror protagonists, they do predictably stupid things, but as Latino teenagers just trying to spend their last summer together and get laid, they’re those really goofy guys you know from that one party we don’t talk about.

 

Like how a good children’s movie will provide some references that will go over the head of the kiddos so that the adults can have a laugh, Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones contains enough bumps, screeches, and scratches to keep the 14 year olds on edge while using the same elements of surprise and shock for some rather good slapstack pratfalls and screwball Spanglish.  The found footage style lets the story jump cut and fast forward through all the boring stuff until Hector manages to get the neighborhood gangsters to pull out the big guns (literally) and it’s all Cholos versus Brujas in some empty plastic-and-dust mansion somewhere up in mapped but unmarked gringo territory.

 

It’s worth the price of admission as long as you allow your b-movies to be packaged in a brand name.  The Paranormal Activity series has managed to keep a legitimate cult following from its beginnings as an actually independent breakout hit through its progressively commercial sequels (and prequel), and The Marked Ones indicates that the filmmakers are willing to expand the world and make it playful.

Filed Under: ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES, REVIEWS, uncategorized Tagged With: ali rey, andrew jacobs, b movie, bruja, Christopher Landon, exorcism, found footage, franchise, Halloween movie, horror, january releases, jorge diaz, latino, movie, movie review, paranormal activity, paranormal activity 5, paranormal activity the marked ones, review, sequel, spanglish, spin off, the marked ones, youtube

A Sequel May Not Be So ‘Wonderful’

by Blair Kaplan

r-ITS-A-WONDERFUL-LIFE-large570

Sixty-seven years after Clarence got his wings, a sequel has been confirmed to be in the works for Frank Capra’s classic 1946 Christmas movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

The original film, which centers around family man, and bank manager, George Bailey, who has given up on his dreams and tries to imagine what life in his small town of Bedford Falls would be like without him, has come to be regarded as a Christmas staple for millions around the world.

A news release from the film financier, Allen J. Schwalb, and his company, Star Partners, explains that “It’s a Wonderful Life: The Rest of the Story” will pick up with what happened to the Bailey family after the end of the original film, and is said to focus on George’s mean-spirited grandson.

Schwalb has financed many other films including “Rain Main,” “The Color Purple,” and “Thelma and Louise.”

The role of little Zuzu Bailey will continue to be played by actress, Karolyn Grimes. It is also rumored that there have been talks with other living cast members of the original to see if they would want to join the sequel.

It will be interesting to see if the film ever even takes off, as NBC controls the rights to “It’s a Wonderful Life,” and only airs the classic sparingly during the holidays.

For a film that is considered one of the most critically acclaimed of all time, many are understandably feeling that the creation of a sequel will be more like a lump of coal than a present under the tree. Only time will tell, though it remains difficult to imagine that a sequel will do such a classic film any justice.

Screenwriter for the sequel, Bob Farnsworth, seems to understand all of the uproar. “Look, no one can make another ‘It’s a Wonderful Life.’ But our story is solid, and we are going in with our eyes open. There is no doubt about it, there will be a ruckus. But I have this motto: All it takes to be a leader is to have a cause you believe in. And the stronger you believe in the cause, the more adversaries you will have. We strongly believe in this.”

The film is projected to be released in time for the 2015 holiday season.

Filed Under: BREAKING NEWS, ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES Tagged With: 2015, Christmas, classic, George Bailey, It's A Wonderful Life, sequel

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