Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones Review: No Spoilers

No Spoilers

On the third of 2014, the newest installment in the Paranormal Activity series, The Marked Ones, was released to theaters worldwide. After the critical panning of 2012's PA4, how does the newest movie stack up? Find out below.

PA: The Marked Ones is not Paranormal Activity 5, however, for reasons we'll get into later, it easily could've been. The movie takes place in Oxford, California, centered in a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood. As the earlier installments do, The Marked Ones started out very light, with the entire audience laughing for a good portion of the first 20 minutes, all while the movie was slowly setting up our plot-lines for later into the movie. Right after those 20 minutes of fun, everything goes downhill incredibly quickly.

From there, the scares come quickly and condensed, keeping you on guard, wondering when the next scare is coming. While there were a few moments through out where you could easily tell what was about to happen, those moments were very few, and for the most part, I was always always on guard, not being too sure if there were more frightening moments to come. 

While this movie was not PA5, it sure did seem like it at some points. The movie featured appearances from series regular Katie, Ali from PA2, and a few other familiar faces I can't mention without giving away details. While this movie wasn't exactly a necessity to the plot-lines of PA1-4, it definitely thickens the plot in a lot of places, bringing a lot of revelations I didn't expect.

Overall, as a long time fan of the series, I enjoyed The Marked Ones. While PA4 was a lot more story-oriented and held back on the scares, Paranormal Activity: Marked Ones was able to deliver a solid story and plenty of scares, making it way better than 4, and just a little under 3's quality, I'd recommend this to anyone who's a fan of horror movies.

Scary Movie 5 Review: Is it as bad as critics say?

"Let's just say fans of the franchise won't be disappointed."

Scary Movie 5 recently came out, 7 years after its latest predecessor, Scary Movie 4. While none of these movies ever tend to get good reviews, the 5th installment received the worst reviews in the franchise, getting only a 5% fresh rating from Rotten Tomatoes. However,  I really don't know why, let's just say fans of the franchise won't be disappointed. While it's true the movie does make some pop culture jokes that just don't hit the mark, for example, Honey Boo Boo popping out of a box saying "A dolla makes me holla Honey Boo Boo" and everyone screaming, but for the most part, the movie kept up the stupid humor the whole series has had that its fans have come to love. So the humor was pretty consistent with its predecessors. The casting for this installment was also great, too. This installment brought back series veteran Simon Rex, who jumped back into his role perfectly. One of the main reasons I was very apprehensive to see this movie was because this installment didn't feature Anna Faris, who has starred in every Scary Movie yet, and while I'm still not sure why she was replaced, Ashley Tisdale took the role perfectly, and she didn't miss a beat. The trailer really didn't show the best parts of this movie, in fact it showed some of the most dull parts of the movie. The trailer also made it seem as if Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan were a major part of the movie, which was not true, as they were only in the movie for about three minutes. Along with them, a huge list of celebrities made cameos, which actually did add to the movie and brought a few extra laughs. Overall, unlike most critics out there, I really did enjoy this movie, and I encourage you all to go see it.
Trailer:

                                                                                                                        -Colby

My Favorite Horror Movies: The Paranormal Activity Series

                                                                      Credit: Paramount Pictures

Hey everyone, so I feel like lately this page has been totally neglected, so I just wanted to give you guys a little review. Today I'll be talking about my favorite horror movie franchise, and how they've had so much success. If you haven't guessed yet, just look up like 5 inches, I'm talking about the Paranormal Activity series. The series well, never actually intended to become a series. The first film started as a very, and I mean like, I could pretty much afford it, low budget movie, but after being shown to a few collages in the states, it received a huge amount of praise. I don't know the exact story, but somehow it ended up being greenlit to be shown in theaters, and ended up making a huge amount of money, exactly $193,355,800. But, the series only got bigger and better from there. Still having a relatively low budget, the second installment brought in almost as much money, $177,512,032 to be exact. And rightfully so, because the second movie brought up even more scares. And it was the same story with the 3rd installment, bringing the scariness to a whole new level, along with ticket sales. It brought in a massive $207,039,844 at the box office! Then came movie number 4, which received a much more lukewarm response than the last 3, bringing in $140,706,358. This is probably because everyone expected this one to be bigger and better than 3, but was on the level of 2. The directors said this was because they purposely took a step down. Let's just hope they bring it back up with number 5. Another huge draw for these movies, besides the scares, is the story. These movies are always extremely well written, and no matter how scary the movie is, they always tremendously build upon the story, but always leave enough mystery that always keeps you thinking, but mainly, always keeps you coming back, movie after movie. The way they make these movies is also very unique too. The use of cameras, and only cameras, always adds another level of suspense to the movies, as you never know what you'll see next. That is also why these movies are so scary, suspense. While there are lots of big scares throughout the movie, the biggest part is always the slowly building suspense, because the end is always, as a poet might say, sooo f*cking  scary! Well anyways, I hope this compelled you to check out some of the Paranormal Activity movies, and I'll see you soon!

                                                                                                            -Colby