Editorials
Ranking the Entire ‘Paranormal Activity’ Franchise Before ‘PA: Next of Kin’ Releases This Friday
I’ve been in love with the Paranormal Activity franchise ever since I first stepped foot into a midnight screening of the first film back in 2009. The movie was spooky enough, but what really stuck with me was how its subtle scares managed to follow me home after the credits rolled. Of course, I wasn’t the only one who had trouble sleeping that weekend, as Paranormal Activity became an unexpected box-office hit, reigniting the Found Footage craze much like The Blair Witch Project had done a decade prior.
Making over $193 million on a $15,000 production budget, it’s no surprise that Oren Peli’s minimalistic classic spawned a long-running franchise. What no one expected was that the legendary series would finally make a comeback in 2021 with the upcoming Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin. And as we wait for William Eubank and Christopher Landon’s return to this spooky world of eerie surveillance footage and carefully orchestrated jump scares, I think it’s the perfect time to look back on the franchise and rank every single Paranormal Activity movie!
Naturally, this ranking is based on personal taste, so I ask that readers interpret it as a single fan’s humble opinion rather than a definitive evaluation of these movies. That being said, don’t forget to share your own personal ranking with us in the comments below.
7. Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension (2015)
Boasting at least a couple of fun jump scares, The Ghost Dimension has its charms, but it’s easily the worst entry in the series. From Toby’s underwhelming reveal to several recycled plot elements, it makes sense that the franchise took a six-year-long hiatus after this underwhelming sequel. The ill-advised 3D gimmick and questionable CGI also ruin any hope of viewer immersion, which kind of defeats the purpose of found footage filmmaking.
I’d only recommend this one to die-hard fans of the series, though I usually ignore it during the occasional franchise re-watch.
6. Paranormal Activity 4 (2012)
By 2012, the series was already suffering from repetitive scares and a convoluted mythology explaining Toby and his followers. Even so, the fourth entry managed to stay relevant through a handful of effective set-pieces involving satanic rituals and even an Xbox Kinect camera. It may be better than The Ghost Dimension, but Paranormal Activity 4 already made it clear that the franchise needed a new direction.
Despite this, this film is notable for being one of the first Found Footage movies to make use of desktop recordings in its narrative, setting a precedent for future Screenlife thrillers like Unfriended, Searching and The Den.
5. Paranormal Activity 2 (2010)
Bigger isn’t necessarily better when it comes to Found Footage, and Paranormal Activity 2 is a great example of this. Even in this first sequel, the lighting and video quality are already way too good to be believable, and focusing on a larger family means that less time is spent developing individual characters. The script also doesn’t do a good job of justifying why a lot of this footage exists in the first place, though that’s more of a nitpick than real criticism.
Even so, PA2 shows much more restraint than its follow-ups, with Tod Williams finding convincing ways to use Found Footage as a vehicle for tightly choreographed scares. From moments like the panning fan-camera to an improvised exorcism, this is definitely a worthy follow-up to Peli’s opus.
4. Paranormal Activity: Tokyo Night (2010)
While it’s no longer part of the main series canon, Paranormal Activity: Tokyo Night was a strange little Found Footage experiment that’s still worth revisiting today. Re-interpreting the minimalistic formula of the original film with a J-Horror twist (complete with an eerily claustrophobic apartment setting), it’s a shame that so many fans of the series missed out on this one.
The connection to the first film is a little tenuous, with the spin-off following a young Japanese woman who had an unfortunate encounter with Katie during a trip to America, but this slow-burn thriller has quite a few spooky tricks up its sleeve. The scene where Haruka is forced to stand up despite her broken legs is one of the most chilling moments in the whole franchise, and there are plenty of other subtle scares to be found here if you can stomach the deliberate pacing.
3. Paranormal Activity 3 (2011)
One of the first instances of a Found Footage prequel, Paranormal Activity 3 was already testing audiences’ suspension of disbelief by suggesting that Katie’s cursed family was hoarding even more spooky footage. The VHS gimmick may not be all that convincing (it’s in Widescreen and HD), but Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman’s attempt at fleshing out the franchise’s mythology makes for a surprisingly entertaining throwback.
While it’s a shame that the original trailer promised several scares that aren’t in the finished film, there are still many chilling moments in this retro horror story. I particularly enjoy how it presents Toby as an imaginary friend from hell, and you’ve got to give the studio props for hiring the directors behind Catfish to help with the franchise’s authenticity.
2. Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones (2014)
Borrowing elements from films like Chronicle and Afflicted while also dealing with time travel and ruthless street gangs, The Marked Ones may not be the most down-to-earth outing in the series, but I’ll be damned if it isn’t one of the most entertaining!
Focusing on a Hispanic high-school graduate as he finds himself in the middle of a supernatural conspiracy, the film may seem like an unorthodox take on the franchise, but this underrated spin-off was actually a calculated risk. With Paranormal Activity being popular among Latino audiences, producers figured that this sizable demographic might appreciate something marketed specifically towards them. As a South American who considers this a great companion piece to the original trilogy, I guess they were right.
1. Paranormal Activity (2007)
The Blair Witch Project may have put Found Footage on the map, but there’s no denying that Oren Peli’s original Paranormal Activity is responsible for popularizing the sub-genre as a reliable source of low-budget scares.
The most lovably low-fi movie of the bunch, the first film still holds up both as a Found Footage landmark and an inspiring example of indie horror. It’s the cheapest production on this list by a huge margin, but its independent origins and low production value are precisely why I think it’s the series’ most effective outing so far.
After all, Found Footage is at its best when it hits close to home, so what could be scarier than a home movie from hell?
From child-eating witches to village-burning dragons, fairy tales have always had a foot in the horror genre. That’s why it makes sense that, for every The Hobbit and The Chronicles of Narnia, there are also darker and more adult-oriented stories about magical worlds inhabited by ravenous monsters and cruel villains.
Funnily enough, these sinister tales were precisely the ones that I gravitated towards back when I was a kid, and I was reminded of this while watching Netflix’s recently released I Am Frankelda, Mexico’s first ever feature-length stop-motion animation and one hell of an entertaining parable about the intersection between fiction and reality.
In honor of this special kind of horror-adjacent fairy tale, today I’d like to share this list recommending six Dark Fantasy films that horror fans might enjoy.
For the purposes of this list, we’ll be defining Dark Fantasy as fantastical stories that don’t shy away from the more macabre elements that fuel classic fairy tales. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own grim favorites if you think we missed a particularly thrilling one.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
6. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)
I’m fascinated by bizarre attempts at blockbuster filmmaking – especially when the resulting movies are somehow still fun despite their corporate-mandated origins. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters is precisely one of these strangely compelling studio projects, as this surprisingly successful action-thriller boasts a lot of heart (and tongue-in-cheek humor) for a CGI-heavy creature feature.
Directed by Dead Snow’s Tommy Wirkola, Witch Hunters re-frames the classic fairy tale as an origin story for a duo of badass monster-slayers. Of course, it’s the flick’s anachronistic aesthetic and overall visual flair that make it stand out from other action-horror endeavors from around the same time.
5. The Wolf House (2018)
Made in the tradition of faux cursed films in the same vein as Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made, the eerie backstory to 2018’s Chilean animated flick The Wolf House (La Casa Lobo in the original Spanish) already makes it a nightmarish experience before the flick even really begins.
After all, the movie is presented to us as a faux propaganda film produced by the leader of a death cult (heavily inspired by the real life Colonia Dignidad), with this hybrid animated feature using complex movie magic to simulate a single uninterrupted shot as it tells the story of a lazy young girl who runs away from an isolated colony and encounters a creepy old house in the woods.
4. The Brothers Grimm (2005)
Out of all the Monty Python alumni, Terry Gilliam has had the most interesting career outside of the original comedy group. From fascinating canceled projects (such as his scrapped adaptation of Watchmen) to dystopian parodies that feel more relevant by the minute (1985’s Brazil), even his “lesser” films are still intriguing in their own way.
2005’s The Brothers Grimm is one such project, with this peculiar movie attempting to combine the comedian-turned-filmmaker’s unique visual style with a more blockbuster-oriented plot reimagining the titular brothers as con-artists rather than mere writers. The end result isn’t exactly a masterpiece, but it’s still a legitimately fun ride with plenty of memorable monsters and wonderful performances by both the late, great Heath Ledger and Matt Damon.
3. Dante’s Inferno: An Animated Epic (2010)
2010’s Dante’s Inferno game may have a reputation as something of an unapologetic God of War clone, but I’d argue that the now-obscure game was aesthetically unique enough to deserve a bigger fanbase. However, while the title remains trapped on the seventh console generation, its highly underrated anime adaptation is a lot easier to get a hold of!
Animated by 6 different studios in order to make the 9 circles of hell feel unique from each other, this may not be a completely faithful adaptation of Dante Alighieri’s poem, but it’s still one heck of a great (not to mention gory) time that I’d highly recommend to fans of Netflix’s take on Castlevania.
2. Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009)
My personal favorite entry in the Underworld franchise, Rise of the Lycans, is a highly ambitious prequel that actually works better if you haven’t had the story spoiled to you by the previous Underworld films.
While the rest of the series features plenty of urban fantasy elements as the movies combine machine guns and modern environments with gothic storytelling, Patrick Tatopoulos’ prequel fully embraces its fantastical origins and tells a classic tale about a doomed romance between a werewolf and a vampire amid a medieval uprising.
And the best part is that we get a lot more Michael Sheen as the fan-favorite Lucian.
1. Solomon Kane (2011)
One of my personal favorite movies on this list, MJ Basset’s criminally underseen adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s other iconic warrior is thoroughly steeped in horror ambience and features plenty of memorable monsters. However, it’s also a classic origin story for a swashbuckling hero that wouldn’t feel out of place in a tabletop RPG.
While I’ve already written about how the film deftly combines both horror and fantasy elements without breaking the bank, I’ll never pass up an opportunity to recommend the bizarre movie where James Purefoy expertly plays a puritan John Wick.
It’s just too bad that we never got the other films in this intended trilogy.
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