I have a weakness for the found footage genre and am already deeply committed to the Paranormal Activity franchise so it was only a matter of time before I saw Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones. Unlike the prior four installments, Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones is considered a spin-off since none of the main characters are pivotal to the events in the prior movies.
Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones follows Jesse, who just graduated from high school, lives in a cramped apartment with his father, his sister, his abuelita and his tiny dog. He hangs out with his friends, Hector and Marisol. They are good kids who avoid gangs, but because they are teens, they occasionally do stupid things like drink and prank each other. Every neighborhood has one weirdo, and the friends speculate what makes that neighbor weird. Jesse believes that his downstairs neighbor is a witch. Apparently paranormal activity is racist because unlike others touched by a demon, there is no financial security.
Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones brings a little life back into the franchise because it largely relies on character likability and development so the audience is invested when bad things start happening. Unfortunately Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones suffers from a common horror movie problem: characters doing something that seem uncharacteristic or inconsistent with prior behavior just so the plot can advance.

SPOILERS

Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones lost me when Marisol, who prior to this point shook her head disapprovingly at her friends’ stupid antics, suggests that they perform a black magic ritual and open a door to an unholy land then perform the ritual in an abandoned church. Um, no. Do these kids live in a world without Hellraiser? I don’t think they would do that.
When Jesse exhibits his powers, he reveals that he can’t fall and hurt himself. So how does Oscar kill himself? If mothers die after giving birth to a member of the demon army, why didn’t Kristi die in Paranormal Activity 2? Is it because she didn’t participate in the naked finger painting ritual?
In the end, Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones required that the kids try to rescue Jesse from the witches. Yes, I want to see them enlist gang members versus witches. Who doesn’t? But at this point, it is obvious that Jesse is a threat to them, and I don’t entirely buy that they would follow him with guns blazing even if those guns are wielded by others since Hector and Marisol ARE good kids. Also the gang members barely know them, but are willing go to an affluent neighborhood and start blowing away white ladies albeit white ladies with inky black demon eyes. I don’t think so.
MVP goes to Wikipedia for explaining the time travel power plot twist introduced in Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones, which is also pivotal in Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension. I think that it helps to watch all these movies in a row because I’m not sure that I would have recognized the show down house or would not have been confused by Katie and Micah reappearing.
I’m just glad that the dog is OK.