My Favorite Movie: Paranormal Activity....Here's Why

 I have seen and loved many horror movies, from the classics like Halloween and Friday The 13th to Bad Ben, Insidious, and The conjuring. While the classics will always be the best and most loved horror movies, Paranormal Activity has a spot in my dark, decrepit soul. 

I mean...I even have a signed poster!

Paranormal activity centers around a couple, Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat, a husband, and wife, who move into a typical suburban home; one believes in the paranormal, and the other is a skeptic. Soon after, the couple begins to experience unexplained occurrences in their home, leading to Micah eventually using their camera to film the strange events. 

Some people don't like paranormal activity and find it a bit drag, but they usually are into movies that need gore and too much blood to scare you; IMHO, if a film really needs all that, what good is it? It's not really scary; it's exciting; yes, some are even very disturbing, but technically I don't feel that creeping fear that a good psychological horror like Paranormal Activity can provide. Now, if a movie can make you look over your shoulder constantly, making you feel like YOU are in the film, like YOU are the one, not alone, without so much as the cast being shot or stabbed or beheaded, then that movie has done its job and is a true masterpiece. 

When I watched the first paranormal activity for the first time, it scared the living shit out of me, especially the scene with the phantom footsteps running up the stairs because I have experienced that same fucking shit in a house I used to live in many years ago, I ignored the goings-on in that house for the most part. Eventually, I moved, but I found that many of the experiences Katie and her husband were experiencing in the first movie were eerily similar to strange shit that occurred in my own home. 

Another thing I love about Paranormal activity is its found-footage/homemade video style. I am a HUGE fan of the found footage film style. Paranormal Activity is my absolute favorite in the genre, mainly because the camera isn't constantly shaking all over the place, you can see what is going on, and you are literally on the edge of your seat the whole time, wondering what is going to happen next, will it be a bang? A door slam? A shadow that ever so covertly escapes your peripheral vision so that you must rewind to make sure you saw it?

This makes the film so good and keeps many of us fans coming back for more. 

Next Of Kin

with that said, Next Of Kin was great...at the end. It definitely got off to a plodding start. It was my least favorite among the franchise; there was too much character development and not enough eeriness, jump scares, and actual paranormal happenings; the whole time I watched it, I felt the movie lacked in literally everything that made the franchise so famous. However, the ending was definitely worth the long humdrum of the film's beginning. It was like actually licking a tootsie pop until you finally get to the surprise center (yes, I'm thinking the same thing as you); I will just say it, the first half of Next Of Kin SUCKED, but the ending was so fucking fantastic, and I hope to God if they do make another Paranormal activity, without giving too much away, that they build on that ending and how it could possibly change the world but please for the love of God stick to what made the franchise famous!