PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: THE MARKED ONES is abhorrent. THE MARKED ONES also has abundant foul language, some extreme violence, lewd content, and explicit nudity. Evil seems all-powerful and good seems non-existent. But, the movie’s weakest, most damaging element is its intense occult worldview. THE MARKED ONES is a simple, formulaic horror movie. With help from two gang friends, Hector and Marisol try to rescue Jesse from an evil coven of witches. Soon, Jesse shows signs of demonic possession. Jesse, Hector, and their friend, Marisol, sneak into her place and find occult materials. One day, they spy two women performing an obscene occult ritual in her place. They secretly record their reclusive and mysterious neighbor, Anna. They record themselves shooting fireworks and drinking. Freshly graduated from high school, two teenage boys, Jesse and Hector, acquire a camera and begin documenting their carefree exploits together. The puzzle which Jesse and Hector put together make them like sleuths who are clearly over their heads and pretty unintelligent in their reckless abandonment, something which audiences would never do even on their dumbest day.PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: THE MARKED ONES is set in a Latino barrio in Oxnard, California. Just like Jesse's wizardry, Landon's production gets away from him by making too many assumptions about his audience's supposed lack of creativity and intelligence. When things finally get ramped up in the third act, we're left with armed Latinos bearing shotguns and Mac10's as they take on the witches ala From Dusk Till Dawn. Rather than using the 'found footage' genre as a way to incite terror throughout the film, Landon bores us with too much character development in the first two acts and not enough scariness. We also like the possessed Simon electronic memory game that starts acting like a Ouija board for Jesse, but beyond that there isn't much else here of value. It works to varying degrees, perhaps encouraging newcomers to check out the previous films, something we'd advise against. In an effort to pull their best Marvel rabbit out of the hat, longtime Writer/Director Christopher Landon has tied this spin-off to the first two Paranormal flicks, including cameos by Part 2 actors Molly Ephraim and others.
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