Paranormal Activity 2 | Movie Review: Paranormal Activity 2

Tod Williams’”Paranormal Activity 2,” a sequel-prequel to Oren Peli’s scruffy, much-tinkered with no-budget hit is a confident, cocky and often comic promenade down the same primrose path. It had multiple writers which give it funnier touch for its first half, and a far more conventional one in its last half. Stakes are raised, the effects are more special.

“Paranormal Activity” worked by lulling us, feeding the viewer banality and inactivity until a tiny thing — a door opening, a shadow — jolted you into awareness. Williams and Co. aren’t nearly that subtle. But the best effects are still the simplest — a pool vacuum that crawls out of the water, by itself, in time-lapse, a dog alert to something we don’t see, a toddler excitably waddling over to a mirror.

“Paranormal Activity 2″

Cast: Brian Boland, Sprague Grayden, Molly Ephraim, Katie Featherston

Director: Tod Williams

Running time: 1 hour 28 minutes

Rating: R for some language and brief violent material.

The movie’s shortcomings are the Hollywood literalism in the third act, the need to show us things and connect dots that we don’t need to connect. The acting is better, but the hair-raising moments are mostly encores, with the occasional cliched leap at the camera, a body suddenly jerked off camera, and the like.

It’s not a bad movie, far less graphic than most studio or indie horror these days. Even at less than 90 minutes, it takes its time to lull us into a false sense of security. But the horror movie tropes that turn up make this “Paranormal” feelsa lot more “normal” than it needs to.

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