Best movie of 2014 so far is Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones. Also, the worst movie of the year. So far. Har. Anyway… this is yet another sequel to the found footage haunted house series… and is only vaguely related to the other movies. Apparently the studio realized that (for some reason) the Latino market for the previous movies was unusually high so they made this side-story with an all-Hispanic cast and set in L.A. (and, yes, eventually they bring in gang members who, armed with shotguns and machine guns, take on a haunted house… and I’m not sure if this is pandering, catering, and/or just racist).

This movie feels different from the others in that it ejects the slow-burn scares where the camera just sits there and waits for something scary to happen, then something scary happens. It’s a lot more interactive with the cameras and the cuts… the main characters are teens who are playing more with the cameras than in previous flicks.

The flick feels more like a spooky Chronicle than an urban Paranormal Activity… a ghost/demon/spirit is protecting the main character and it starts to feel like he’s got super powers and they think its neat (and it kind of is… though they should perhaps be a little more worried). Then the movie kind of gets funny (unintentionally) when it introduces a classic Simon toy as a weird oujia board (red light/tone means No, green light/tone means yes). Last movie used an Xbox Kinect to be spooky, this uses a Simon. That must be some kind of joke. Right?

Anyhow, given this was dumped at the start of the new year, that must mean it sucks…. but, you know, it wasn’t half bad as far as this franchise goes. It has the typical sucky non-ending ending that all good (and bad) found footage movies have but the new location and style held my interest more than expected… though it didn’t scare me a single time. It could have (and probably should have) been worse. Much worse. Expect bad reviews (if anyone bothers).

Score: 70