![]() ![]() The morning after, Jesse wakes up with a bite mark on his arm. In a bit of jump scare humor, it turns out that the teens aren’t the only ones in Anna’s apartment looking for clues, Oscar’s brother Arturo (Richard Cabral) is also there lurking in the dark. Once inside, among other things, they find blood stains and even more bizarre, considering Anna didn’t have any children, a room set aside as a nursery. Jesse gets the not so bright idea of breaking into Anna’s apartment, to, as he puts it, look for clues. Several nights later, Anna is taken from her apartment in a body bag, having apparently been murdered by Oscar, who Jesse and Hector saw leaving her apartment the day before. Seconds later, Anna, who is also naked, appears on camera and begins painting red markings on the other woman’s body. What appears on the camera, which the boys have attached to the television, is a fully naked woman, standing alone, perfectly still. Curious to know what is going on in the apartment below them, which belongs to Anna, (Gloria Sandoval) who is supposedly a witch, they unscrew the grating for the ventilation shaft, and lower the video camera down by cable to try and find out what is going on. One evening, while spending time at Jesse’s grandmother’s (Renee Victor) apartment, where he lives, he and Hector hear strange noises coming from the ventilation shaft. Taking the summer to figure things out, they begin playing around with Jessie’s new video camera, a graduation present given to him by his father, Cesar (David Saucedo). The two aren’t quite sure where they are headed in life upon graduating from high school. Teenagers, Jesse and Hector (Jorge Diaz), are close friends. In addition, the opening scene, which features a speech being made by Oscar, (Carlos Pratts) who is his high school’s valedictorian, was a good reason for his friend Jessie (Andrew Jacobs) to have a video camera documenting that day’s events. Opting to remove this entry from an idyllic home setting in the suburbs and relocate it to a grittier neighborhood in Oxnard, California, was the first thing that I felt was handled correctly. ![]() Perhaps taking a cue from the successful formula of the television series “American Horror Story,” the fifth entry veers off in a different direction in terms of both characters and location. I must confess that while my feeling toward the film, in an overall sense, was that it was decent and would have been better served as something I waited to watch on Netflix, there were certain changes that were made that I found worked to help enhance the story and place it above its predecessors. The coming attractions, along with the movie’s short runtime of eighty four minutes, however, persuaded me enough to give up a portion of my Saturday evening to see if the Paranormal Activity franchise had any cinematic life left to it. In the interest of full disclosure, I was more than a bit reluctant to go see yet another of that type of movie, especially after sitting through the ‘no thrills’ fourth entry into the series. (As an aside, this entry to the series, due to production issues, is the only one since the series began in 2007, that was not released during the month of October.) While the movie is part horror and part thriller, it also is one more entry into the seemingly endless ‘found footage’ style of filmmaking. Written and directed by Christopher Landon, “Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones” had its American premiere on January 2, 2014, in Hollywood, California. I shopped around for a new computer, which I set up last evening so hopefully, I can now get back to writing on a regular basis. ![]() Shortly after the New Year began, I sat down to write, and my computer tower died. It was certainly not my intention to give myself any sort of extended hiatus from posting. I am sorry that this is the first time I have blogged since the year began. I hope you all had a very Happy New Year, and I wish you all the best in your endeavors moving forward with 2014. ![]()
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