The horror sequel has always been a difficult thing to pull off but the found footage film is surely the most difficult thing to follow. As the genre relies heavily on the originality of the format to provide scares, an audience can quickly become immune to it- or so the received wisdom goes. So what’s a filmmaker to do? [REC] 2 turned everything up to 11 with the addition of a swat team while The Blair Witch Project 2: Book of Shadows retreated completely back into a traditional format, dispatching both the handheld cams and any kind of quality control. Both tactics failed dismally to match their predecessors. For Paranormal Activity 2, director Tod Williams has decided that the best way forward is to look back. For this sequel, both thematically and stylistically, the mantra seems to be “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” A risky move but, as it turns out, an extremely clever one.
The film moves the action back to 60 days before Micah met a nasty end at the hands of the possessed Katie. This time we are in the house of Katie’s sister, Kristi who has just brought her newborn son Hunter home from the hospital. It is here that things start to go horribly wrong for the family- beginning with what appears to be a break-in and ending in full on ghostly chaos. By keeping it in the family, there is a really organic progression to the story; pleasingly, it feels more like a companion piece to the original than a money grabbing sequel (albeit with a baby and a dog thrown in to mix things up a little).
But what about the scares? As a fan of the original, I was far from disappointed. The restraint shown in the slow build of the action remains as impressive as it did the first time around. Long periods of inactivity and silence build the tension to an almost unbearable level only to be broken by a pot falling in a dark kitchen. Cue: nervous laughter- a sound which reverberated around the screening I attended and was only second in volume to the gasps and screams that came later when Williams ups the ante. All in all, Paranormal Activity 2 proved to be a pleasingly horrid success. If you got swept away in the original, this shouldn’t leave you disappointed.