Paranormal Activity 2 review

2/4
(18+) US. Katie Featherston, Micah Sloat, Brian Boland
It may have cost 200 times more than Oren Peli’s US$15,000 original, but it’s barely one 10th as scary. A more appropriate title would have been Paranormal Inactivity Too. The alleged ‘found’ footage is prefaced by a title reading, ‘60 hours before the death of Micah Sloat’ – Sloat being the male character whose shocking demise marked the climax of the first film. After their home is trashed, Christy persuades her husband to install CCTV in the house and garden. These cameras then show us evidence of demonic (in)activity, capturing the mysterious opening of doors, the aimless nocturnal meanderings of the robotic swimming pool cleaner, and the spooked behaviour of the family dog. The less said about Martine, the stereotyped superstitious Mexican maid, the better: her sole function is to provide patronising comic relief by wafting incense about the house, all the while rambling incoherently in Spanish about good and bad spirits.