Aren’t we all?
Before we get into the shit, let me just rub something in by telling you that, yes, once again, we had a movie in Yeaman before ya’ll in Rest-of-the-World. Here’s the peroxide proof of that.
Ramblings: Pretty Normal Activity
Final Proof: 3 Shots
You know how you get drunk on your annual camping trip? Instead of grilling the burgers yourself on the fire, you decide to try fast food for a change so you eat your burgers around the fire and sip your beer and commence the horror story telling but the tales taste as stale as the rehash you swallow with your flat beer because it never really gets cold enough in a cooler. The stories, like the beer, aren’t bad and the scare, like the fare, are predictable variations of the same urban legends with some fun twists on your nads and suspense to keep you awake but if you’re looking to be startled by something truly new, you’d be better served by another franchise. Still at the end of the day when you’re peeing on the fire, you go to bed and the beer burps bring up the burger aftertaste and you realize you’re satisfied because you got what you expected, if nothing more. That burp is what Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones smacks of.
You know me, and if you don’t just hold it against me, i’m all kinds of specialist on Paranormal Activity because we always get them first in Yeaman.
For those of you who need a cheat sheet, here’s a summary of all the Paranormals up until this point.
Paranormal Activity 1: (October 2006) Micah and Katie are harassed by a demon and record it on a digital camera.
Paranormal Activity 2: (Prequel: September 2006) Kristi (Katie’s younger sister), her husband and her hot step daughter are bugged by the same demon and record it on digital home security cameras.
Paranormal Activity 3: (Pre-prequel: 1998) Kristi and Katie are little girls and are stalked by a demon and their stepdad records it on videocassette camera.
Paranormal Activity 4: (Sequel: November 2011) A blonde teen is tormented by an evil Ben with hormones, but also an evil spirit and the neighbor kid from across the street. Her adventures are mostly recorded on webcams and an Xbox.
Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones: (Post September 2006): The film is set after Ali (Molly Ephraim) loses her dad and step mother (Kristi) in PA2 and includes an alternate take of Katie killing Micah (PA1). An 18 year old Hispanic guy named Jesse realizes too late he’s been marked since birth for demon possession. The filming is done with a video camera he buys with his graduation money.
Interestingly or not, this movie technically isn’t Paranormal Activity 5. PA5 is supposed to come out in October, but Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones is a spin-off for the Latino crowd, and why the fuck not. There may be some special guest appearances by Molly Ephraim who’s back from Paranormal Activity 2 for one scene, and the iniminimintable Katie Featherston who has some cameos as well, but basically this is an all new branch of the franchise.
i’m not going to give away anything about the story because i hate it when people do that, but i’ll tell you what you need to know which is Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones (which is a long fucking title i’ll never type again) delivers what you ordered and feeds you the crap you expected.
You got the found footage feel (evn if they don’t thank the families and the police in this one like they did in some of the others), you have the talented unknown actors (like Andrew Jacobs does a good job as Jesse, the possessed teen, and very beautiful Latina actresses (Catherine Toribio and Gabrielle Walsh to name but a two) who are talented and just your type if you’re into “very beautiful”. You also have the building of fake startle moments into real startle moments and even a Simon Says game as a modern ouija board / devil’s condom (or whatever the word is that means ‘conduit’).
The new & improved parts come in the fact that the action takes place outside and in many different locations around the city and not just in a couple of rooms. Plus, there’s more action and less heating up slowly to a slow burn like in the earlier ones.
This movie is like the James Bond series, it has women in it. Also, if you like the others in the series, you’ll like this one too.
Buzz Kills (Watch Out for Spoilers)
Sex: 2½ Shots
Another first for PA:TMO is that they had full frontal female nudity of a hot brunette. Sure, we saw it through a video camera filming a TV screen receiving a signal from a GoPro camera, but it was better than nothing and certainly much better than the sight of an older and heavier naked woman painting the triangle/circle symbol on the hot woman’s stomach.
Apart from that, like i already said, they had Molly Ephraim as Ali again and remember how much i drooled after her in my review of Paranormal Activity 2? This film proves me right, though her screen time unfortunately was next to nothing. Like what she’s wearing here.
Molly Ephraim Bar None Wallpaper – Click on the shot for the wallpaper
There’ll be more shots of her in my drawers, at the bottom. All you gotta do is scroll all the way down.
The rest of the hotness took place with the Silken Butterflies, who are those wonderful actresses whose screen time was the opposite of how talented they are.
One of the hottest was the lovely Catherine Toribio, who played Penelope, a party girl who wants to get freaky with Jesse until the freaky shit starts. Fortunately, before that there’s a scene where she’s crawling around on her hands and knees in her bra, you get the picture, lucky you.
One of the other principle actresses was Gabrielle Walsh, who plays Marisol (Jesse’s best girl friend). She did such a good job with the acting thing that i almost forgot she looks this good.
The other minor roles weren’t all that much more minor either, especially when you realize they were nailed by actresses like Noemi Gonzalez, who was Jesse’s sister, Evette.
There was also the extremely lovely Wallis Barton who was so killer as “Captive Girl” you’d think she liked it.
There was a surplus of shots of her online, so i stuffed a couple of them in my drawers. Down there.
PA:TMO also saw the big screen debut (probably) of Gigi Feshold as Penelope’s friend, Natalia. At least i’m pretty sure that’s who it was and it’s not like you’re reading this anyway. Speaking of “pretty”:
Finally, i’m saving my favorite for last. She played “Coven Witch” but she’s also a famous stunt woman and her names is Crystal Santos. How cool is that? A stunt woman/actress named Crystal who looks like this:
Told you she was hot, bitches.There’s more shots of her in my drawers as well.
Drink: 2½ Shots
Not a lot to go on here in terms of drinking being crucial to the story, but there was still some gratuitous drinking which means “free” so here’s my notes on the “free drinking” which is what everyone loves to hear their bartender say.
- 40′s and probably a keg @ a graduation party
- Shots of tequila with grandma
- Beer [while] playing Simon Says
- Cute Latinas drinking beer at party
Molly Ephraim in the Bar None
Rock & Roll: 3 Shots
There was no rock and roll music that I was able to discern so all the points here go towards the action. There was 3 star’s worth because they had some surprise events like bodies falling out of the sky and car accidents out of nowhere.
At the beginning they had some fake “cat jumping out of the closet” type stuff but later on the real suspense was real enough. Another cool thing about suspense movies is that you can take a date to them and she (or he, depending) will get scared and cuddle up next to you but there’s no hardcore violence to freak them out so they don’t want to do other hardcore shit later back at the house.
Boring Technical Crap
Written by: Christopher Landon
Directed by: Christopher Landon
Starring
Gabrielle Walsh – Marisol
Catherine Toribio – Penelope
Molly Ephraim – Ali
Noemi Gonzalez – Evette
Wallis Barton – Captive Girl
Gigi Feshold – Natalia
Crystal Santos – Coven Witch
Andrew Jacobs – Jesse
Bottom Line
There’s a reason they use the word “franchise” with both fast food and movies. PA:TMO is like McDonalds, nothing special but you know what you’re going to get when you go there, which is not at all a bad thing if you like McDonalds.
Another Round
The Rod’s brilliant review of the first one
Saint Pauly’s hilarious look at Evil Dead reboot
Booze Revooze of Scream 4, speaking of franchises
Haven’t Had Your Fill of the Booze Revooze? Click here for another round.
Al K Hall’s Drawers
The review ends here. Keep going only if you want to see how photogenic the actresses are in PA:TMO
Molly Ephraim
Wallis Barton
Crystal Santos
Haven’t Had Your Fill of the Booze Revooze? Click here for another round.
