Security-camera suspense

Following the surprise success of the low-budget horror film Paranormal Activity, director Tod Williams now offers a sequel that covers much of the same ground as the first. With undeveloped characters and a narrative teetering between relentless suspense and utter boredom, Paranormal Activity 2 offers a few cheap thrills and little else.

The film begins inauspiciously, with titles announcing, "Paramount Pictures would like to thank the families of the deceased and the Carlsbad Police Department." This ploy will be familiar to viewers who have seen any of the "realistic" horror movies that have come out in the decade since The Blair Witch Project.

More than a sense of reality, this announcement quickly establishes one of the key characteristics of Paranormal Activity 2: lazy filmmaking. Titles such as these are used throughout the film as stand-ins for foreshadowing, just as the supposed home-movie production values free the filmmakers from any responsibility - so they would have us believe - of developing their characters.

The film centers on a husband and wife, Daniel and Kristi (played by Boland and Grayden) and their newborn baby, Hunter (Harper Zelinsky). It is quickly revealed that Kristi is the sister of Katie (Katie Featherston), the subject of the first film. The events depicted - so the titles tell us - take place 60 days before the climax of Paranormal Activity.

The family's home is broken into soon after they bring Hunter back from the hospital, but strangely, nothing is stolen. Daniel then makes the somewhat drastic decision to set up a complex system of security cameras around the house, which provide evidence that these "domestic disturbances" are far more ghoulish than they first appear.

The most definitive stylistic trait of the Paranormal Activity series is, of course, the fact that the films are shot completely on hand-held digital camcorders and security cameras. Early in this film, a rhythm is established in which the security-camera system shuffles room to room each night. These establishing shots work well to create tension, as viewers find themselves anxiously scanning empty rooms for any sign of movement. But this gesture quickly gets repetitive, and the pacing of the film slows to a trickle.

At several moments, one feels that the writers are trying to convey something in the way of background information for these characters and the possible motivation for the demon that is haunting them - something about a pact with the devil in which the firstborn son is payment - but this is never clarified and, like much else in Paranormal Activity 2, fails to arouse our interest or even a sense of relevance.

The film takes a sudden leap to a more extreme level of violence in the final reels when the demon attacks the family dog, causing it to have a fit that requires Daniel to take it to the veterinarian, thus leaving Christie at home with Hunter. The demon then proceeds to bat Kristi around and drag her down the stairs. All of this is necessary for ratcheting up the stakes in the film, but it leaves one wondering why the demon doesn't simply kill everyone in the first few minutes of the film, leaving both it - and the audience - in a more satisfied state.

The film ends with a transparent rush to conclusion, as Daniel confronts the demon, and a short, violent exorcism of sorts ensues with so much shaky, night-vision camerawork that it is impossible to tell what's happening.

Paranormal Activity 2 is clearly an attempt to cash in on what was a relatively original cinematic conceit. It is almost entertaining to watch this attempt to stretch the limits of the horror genre, but finally the scariest thing about this film is that anyone would think these hollow characters could be made empathetic with suspense and a few bumps in the night.

Stephan Delbos can be reached at
sdelbos@praguepost.com