Editorials
‘Paranormal Activity 2’ Brilliantly Turned a Simple Story into a Compelling Franchise
It’s often not the first film that launches a franchise, but rather its sequel.
Director Oren Peli will be the first one to tell you that he never planned on Paranormal Activity being anything more than a one-shot film. His low-budget debut feature, filmed in his own home, told a contained story with a definite beginning, middle and end. In short, a young man and woman, Micah and Katie, realize that something strange is going on inside their home while they sleep, so they decide to start filming their bedroom after they turn the lights out each night. A demonic entity eventually presents itself, possessing Katie.
A possessed Katie kills Micah. A police officer arrives, shooting and killing Katie. At least, this was the ending to the film when it initially premiered back in 2007.
As is now common knowledge, Paramount eventually acquired Peli’s little movie, releasing it into theaters across the country in 2009. Much to Peli’s initial chagrin, Paramount shot an entirely new ending for the film, designed to allow room for sequels. In the theatrical ending, Katie doesn’t get shot by the cops after killing Micah.
Instead, she vanishes.
After the smash hit success of Paranormal Activity, Paramount’s desired sequel wasn’t far behind. Peli remained on board as producer of Paranormal Activity 2, released in 2010. This time, the script was penned by Christopher Landon, Michael Perry and Tom Pabst, and Tod Williams took over as director of the found footage franchise’s second outing.
Initially unbeknownst to the audience, the multi-camera Paranormal Activity 2 centers on the family of Kristi, briefly referenced in the first film as being Katie’s sister. Surprisingly, Katie pops up at a certain point, cluing us into the fact that this sequel is actually (for the most part) a prequel to Paranormal Activity. Katie isn’t yet possessed and Micah is still alive, but Kristi and her family are experiencing the sort of strange, terrifying activity that Katie and Micah soon will.
If the first sequel makes or breaks a franchise, Paranormal Activity 2 most definitely accomplished the goal of “making” this one. The first film established no real mythology for a potential franchise beyond Katie and her sister having experienced *something* as children, and the sequel uses that limited backstory from Peli’s film as the jumping off point to expand upon the story and deepen the mythology in some very interesting ways.
Why was Katie being targeted in the first film? And what was with that burnt childhood photo in her attic? Paranormal Activity 2 provides compelling answers to these questions.
We learn in Paranormal Activity 2 that a distant relative of Katie and Kristi’s family made some kind of deal with a demon decades prior to 2006, under the clause that the demon would eventually collect the firstborn male in the family tree. As it turns out, Kristi’s young son Hunter is that firstborn male, making her and her family the initial target of the demon. And here’s where things get really crazy, and wonderfully mean-spirited.
In a shocking twist that manages to make the original Paranormal Activity an even better, creepier and more interesting film upon a revisit, we learn in the sequel that it was actually Kristi’s lovable husband Daniel who was responsible for Katie being tormented in Peli’s movie! Desperate and fearing for the life of his wife, young son and teenage daughter, Daniel resorts to extreme measures, transferring the demon from his wife’s body into her sister’s home! It’s the family’s housekeeper who tells him how to do this, and the process involves burning a photo of the new host (which must be a blood relative) and placing it inside that person’s home.
Does that mean the noises Katie and Micah heard on the first of their nightmare nights were actually Daniel breaking in and spreading the curse? Chilling to think about.
Paranormal Activity 2 is also loaded with other fun little treats for fans of the first film, cluing us into why Micah wanted to buy a camera in the first place – he was impressed with Daniel’s, remarking that he needed to get one – and even showing us the likely origins of the Ouija Board Micah uses in the first film. He tells Katie in Paranormal Activity that he had borrowed it, and that same board’s appearance in the sequel suggests that it was Daniel who lent it to him. Of course, that only helped Daniel’s insidious cause.
Ultimately, Paranormal Activity 2 catches up to the events of the first film, picking up precisely where it left off in the final act. Katie kills Micah, snaps Daniel’s neck and then steals baby Hunter, once again disappearing into the night. The demon has finally collected on the deal it made decades prior, and new questions are left for future sequels. For starters, what the hell is a demonically possessed Katie now going to do with the baby?!
The ’80s-set Paranormal Activity 3 may be the fan favorite sequel, but it was Paranormal Activity 2 that took an incredibly simple story, cracked it wide open, and made a franchise out of the whole thing. Revisiting the 2010 film this week, I was reminded that it’s in many ways the perfect sequel, both building and improving upon its predecessor.
Most franchises only wish they had a Paranormal Activity 2 to really get things going.
Having grown up in a religious family, Christian movie night was something that happened a lot more often than I care to admit. However, back when I was a teenager, my parents showed up one night with an unusually cool-looking DVD of a movie that had been recommended to them by a church leader. Curious to see what new kind of evangelical propaganda my parents had rented this time, I proceeded to watch the film with them expecting a heavy-handed snoozefest.
To my surprise, I was a few minutes in when Denzel Washington proceeded to dismember a band of cannibal raiders when I realized that this was in fact a real movie. My mom was horrified by the flick’s extreme violence and dark subject matter, but I instantly became a fan of the Hughes Brothers’ faith-based 2010 thriller, The Book of Eli. And with the film’s atomic apocalypse having apparently taken place in 2024, I think this is the perfect time to dive into why this grim parable might also be entertaining for horror fans.
Originally penned by gaming journalist and The Walking Dead: The Game co-writer Gary Whitta, the spec script for The Book of Eli was already making waves back in 2007 when it appeared on the coveted Blacklist. It wasn’t long before Columbia and Warner Bros. snatched up the rights to the project, hiring From Hell directors Albert and Allen Hughes while also garnering attention from industry heavyweights like Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman.
After a series of revisions by Anthony Peckham meant to make the story more consumer-friendly, the picture was finally released in January of 2010, with the finished film following Denzel as a mysterious wanderer making his way across a post-apocalyptic America while protecting a sacred book. Along the way, he encounters a run-down settlement controlled by Bill Carnegie (Gary Oldman), a man desperate to get his hands on Eli’s book so he can motivate his underlings to expand his empire. Unwilling to let this power fall into the wrong hands, Eli embarks on a dangerous journey that will test the limits of his faith.
SO WHY IS IT WORTH WATCHING?
Judging by the film’s box-office success, mainstream audiences appear to have enjoyed the Hughes’ bleak vision of a future where everything went wrong, but critics were left divided by the flick’s trope-heavy narrative and unapologetic religious elements. And while I’ll be the first to admit that The Book of Eli isn’t particularly subtle or original, I appreciate the film’s earnest execution of familiar ideas.
For starters, I’d like to address the religious elephant in the room, as I understand the hesitation that some folks (myself included) might have about watching something that sounds like Christian propaganda. Faith does indeed play a huge part in the narrative here, but I’d argue that the film is more about the power of stories than a specific religion. The entire point of Oldman’s character is that he needs a unifying narrative that he can take advantage of in order to manipulate others, while Eli ultimately chooses to deliver his gift to a community of scholars. In fact, the movie even makes a point of placing the Bible in between equally culturally important books like the Torah and Quran, which I think is pretty poignant for a flick inspired by exploitation cinema.
Sure, the film has its fair share of logical inconsistencies (ranging from the extent of Eli’s Daredevil superpowers to his impossibly small Braille Bible), but I think the film more than makes up for these nitpicks with a genuine passion for classic post-apocalyptic cinema. Several critics accused the film of being a knockoff of superior productions, but I’d argue that both Whitta and the Hughes knowingly crafted a loving pastiche of genre influences like Mad Max and A Boy and His Dog.
Lastly, it’s no surprise that the cast here absolutely kicks ass. Denzel plays the title role of a stoic badass perfectly (going so far as to train with Bruce Lee’s protégée in order to perform his own stunts) while Oldman effortlessly assumes a surprisingly subdued yet incredibly intimidating persona. Even Mila Kunis is remarkably charming here, though I wish the script had taken the time to develop these secondary characters a little further. And hey, did I mention that Tom Waits is in this?
AND WHAT MAKES IT HORROR ADJACENT?
Denzel’s very first interaction with another human being in this movie results in a gory fight scene culminating in a face-off against a masked brute wielding a chainsaw (which he presumably uses to butcher travelers before eating them), so I think it’s safe to say that this dog-eat-dog vision of America will likely appeal to horror fans.
From diseased cannibals to hyper-violent motorcycle gangs roaming the wasteland, there’s plenty of disturbing R-rated material here – which is even more impressive when you remember that this story revolves around the bible. And while there are a few too many references to sexual assault for my taste, even if it does make sense in-universe, the flick does a great job of immersing you in this post-nuclear nightmare.
The excessively depressing color palette and obvious green screen effects may take some viewers out of the experience, but the beat-up and lived-in sets and costume design do their best to bring this dead world to life – which might just be the scariest part of the experience.
Ultimately, I believe your enjoyment of The Book of Eli will largely depend on how willing you are to overlook some ham-fisted biblical references in order to enjoy some brutal post-apocalyptic shenanigans. And while I can’t really blame folks who’d rather not deal with that, I think it would be a shame to miss out on a genuinely engaging thrill-ride because of one minor detail.
With that in mind, I’m incredibly curious to see what Whitta and the Hughes Brothers have planned for the upcoming prequel series starring John Boyega…
There’s no understating the importance of a balanced media diet, and since bloody and disgusting entertainment isn’t exclusive to the horror genre, we’ve come up with Horror Adjacent – a recurring column where we recommend non-horror movies that horror fans might enjoy.
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