Paranormal Activity The Marked Ones...This one is a bit different....

Well, I saw it with my wife last Saturday, and I have to say right off the bat that its not like the previous two.
I’ve come across people who have started confusing the films and for good reason….they’ve been redundant in their delivery…First everything is okay, then things start to go bump in the night…then things get crazy with people being dragged around all over the place, followed by full possession by the demon. This was how it was even in the second film, which I liked due to it’s connection with the first film…..I like how things get explained and made clear. This is what Paranormal Activity, The Marked Ones did for me….it made things more clear, yet keeping the questions going.
Essentially this is a story very character driven. It involves a young Latino guy named Jesse, just graduated from high school, and his friend enjoying a well earned summer vacation. Jesse has a neighbor downstairs who is regarded as ‘strange’….a lady who does things in secret and whom over the course of years, according to abuela, has slowly deteriorated mentally. After learning some weird things that occur downstairs, Jesse and Hector keep going about their young ways when they see their old high school classmate Oscar run out of the woman’s house. Police are driven to the scene where apparently a murder has taken place…the woman is dead and Oscar is the suspect. By the way, all of this is being caught on Jesse’s handycam. Gotta keep the tradition going….

Being daring as usual, Jesse, Marisol, another friend of theirs, and Hector sneak downstairs on more than one occasion and find odd things regarding witchcraft and Satan worship. Apparently was part of some coven though it is yet hard to determine if she had some outside affiliation yet. As the film unfolds, revelations are made regarding Jesse, his mother, who died at Jesse’s birth, and the now dead as a doornail lady. Lets of course not forget a series of events that begin to happen to Jesse; Bite marks, telekinetic actions (fighting off potential muggers using unusual powers), change in personality….we start losing Jesse bit by bit throughout the film until there’s nothing left of him despite the vain attempts by Hector, Marisol and abuela. They get some tips from a girl who seems to know all about the coven and their wanting to build an “army”, using the “marked ones”….first born males of a given family chosen to become vessels of demons to bring something about….I don’t yet know what that is, but it becomes clear it involves the coven revealed in the previous films. They even found the old 80’s video tapes of Katie and Christie from the third film when they were kids. It then turns out that this girl with all the information is the daughter from Paranormal Activity 2…the one who’s father and stepmother Kristie was killed by a possessed Katie before she kidnapped her baby stepbrother! Least to say I was interested. I like connections like that. 

With the aid of some “gangstas”, they try one last attempt to save Jesse who apparently gets taken by the coven. They find the place…which happens to be the house of Katie’s grandmother shown in PA 3. I recognized it immediately. Some witches get blown away like it was a war movie or a mafia flick…Pretty cool.
Yet what becomes crazy to me is the revealing of a special “door” in the grandmothers house which, if I heard right in the film, seems to be some kind of portal between the physical and spiritual realms….it also seems to be a time door of some sort as well. It seems to explain a few questions left from previous films as well. It was like “The Chronicles of Narnia” vs “The Exorcist” or something…..poor Hector, the only one left alive after the coven’s assault, goes through the door. What happens afterwards I will not reveal….yet….but I will say this….the setting of this film is June 2012….six years after the events of the first Paranormal Activity film.
I loved the predominately Latino cast in the film. It was realistic in regards to the area in California as well as the urban flavor of the setting. What we see here is not what is seen in the other films. We don’t see people being dragged away. We see a total disintegration of the main character, Jesse, whom I actually started to care about in the film. Even Abuela makes one final attempt at an exorcism that she learned at the local botanica on how to cast out the “unclean spirit” . Being Puerto Rican growing up in the South Bronx where there are botanicas everywhere, I could understand why they wanted to go that route. Personally, I would have gone to the Catholic Church across the street to seek help in these matter. Yes…there is a Catholic Church across the street from Jesse’s house and nobody makes any use of it.
Over all, I give this movie three coffee cups!!! That’s an improvement from the last two films which I gave only one. It kept me interested. It was not the same old thing, and it answered some questions as well as brought up some more questions that hopefully as the franchise continues, will answer. I would give this film a view if you are into the Paranormal Activity Series.