paranormal activity movie review

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Paranormal activity, common sense media reviewers.

Indie scare fest doesn't need blood and gore to terrify.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

The main characters' plight is unexplained -- they

Micah isn't much of a role model, despite his brav

A simmering violence constantly threatens but rare

A young adult couple that lives together talks and

Very liberal use of "f--k" in all its variations,

The couple opens a bottle of wine at dinnertime in

Parents need to know that Paranormal Activity is a real chill-up-the-spine movie that's bound to induce nightmares in plenty of young moviegoers -- even though, as with The Blair Witch Project , the big buzz around the movie (and the prospect of testing their backbone) will likely prove irresistible to…

Positive Messages

The main characters' plight is unexplained -- they don't seem to have done anything to "deserve" what they go through. Unfortunately, they also can't agree on the methods or approaches to deal with it, and so most of their work is for naught. But they demonstrate some definite bravery in standing up to the beast.

Positive Role Models

Micah isn't much of a role model, despite his bravery in trying to face and fight the demon. He constantly disagrees and argues with Katie and often refuses to listen when she asks him for help. He tries to fight the demon in an aggressive, physical way, even though it's clear that it's not going to work. But on the plus side, Katie exhibits definite courage, strength, and good humor in the face of her harrowing problem.

Violence & Scariness

A simmering violence constantly threatens but rarely cuts loose onscreen -- there's actually very little physical violence, with only the tiniest hint of blood or gore. Micah and Katie argue often.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

A young adult couple that lives together talks and jokes about sex fairly often. They both walk around the house in sleeping clothes, consisting of boxer shorts, T-shirts, and tank tops. A female guest shows off her bare midriff. The camera sometimes emphasizes Katie's ample cleavage. The couple has sex one time, but it happens off camera.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Very liberal use of "f--k" in all its variations, including name-calling (directed toward the invading demon). Other words include "s--t," "ass," "hell," "damn," and "Oh my God." Micah raises his middle finger, twice, in a joking manner.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

The couple opens a bottle of wine at dinnertime in an early scene, but we don't really see them drinking it.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Paranormal Activity is a real chill-up-the-spine movie that's bound to induce nightmares in plenty of young moviegoers -- even though, as with The Blair Witch Project , the big buzz around the movie (and the prospect of testing their backbone) will likely prove irresistible to many teens. The movie takes its cues from many classic horror films in that it only suggests the scary stuff rather than actually showing explicit gore and violence -- but in leaving much to the viewer's imagination, the effect is much, much more psychologically terrifying than any regular blood-fest. Expect frequent strong language (including multiple uses of "f--k" and "s--t") and some sex talk. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Community Reviews

• Parents say (49)
• Kids say (201)

Based on 49 parent reviews

I love these

Easy one of the worst movies i've ever watched., what's the story.

In PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, Micah (Micah Sloat) brings home a deluxe video camera and starts filming himself and his girlfriend Katie (Katie Featherston) in their large San Diego house. It seems that unseen forces have been terrifying them while they sleep, and Micah hopes to gather evidence. A psychic (Michael Bayouth) warns them that the trouble is probably caused by a demon -- one specifically targeting Katie -- and that they need professional help. But Micah wants to keep filming and work the problem out by themselves. Unfortunately, the disturbances begin to grow more and more alarming.

Is It Any Good?

Made for a very low budget and with minimal actors and settings, this is an effective horror movie that's more dependent on ideas than on spectacle or gore. Like horror classics ranging from Cat People (1942) to The Haunting (1963) to The Blair Witch Project , Paranormal Activity suggests its terrors rather than explicitly showing them, which leaves far more to the imagination -- and sends more genuine chills up the spine.

The well-paced daytime scenes are comparatively relaxing as Micah and Katie try to figure out their dilemma, but the nighttime scenes offer something spookier. The couple sleeps in a static wide shot; the bed, the doorway, and part of a hallway are visible. The scary part can be a sound or an image, but it can originate from anywhere within the frame; the movie always keeps viewers off guard. Some of the characters' behavior can grate, but that's a minor quibble in an otherwise satisfying, terrifying experience.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the concept of random violence in Paranormal Activity , as in the demon's seemingly meaningless attacks on Katie. What would cause someone or something to strike out without a reason? How would this make a person feel?

How scary was the movie? What scared you most, and why? How did you feel about being scared?

What would be the effect of constantly filming your life?

Movie Details

• In theaters : September 25, 2009
• On DVD or streaming : December 29, 2009
• Cast : Katie Featherston , Micah Sloat , Michael Bayouth
• Director : Oren Peli
• Studio : Paramount Pictures
• Genre : Horror
• Run time : 99 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : language
• Last updated : June 30, 2024

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Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, black writers week, paranormal activity: next of kin.

Now streaming on:

You know a horror movie isn’t working when you spend a lot of the time watching it trying to figure out the exact degree of deception going on in its title. How is “Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin” related to the other six films in this franchise? It's not really. Yes, there’s a found footage structure—although I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a movie push the boundaries of disbelief more in that department—and there’s a supernatural element, of course, but this script could just as easily be a “ Blair Witch ” sequel with a minor rewrite. It’s clearly an original story that's been slapped with the “PA” label and that only adds to the sense that there’s little creative depth here. "Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin" feels less like a chance to creatively reboot a hit franchise and more like a way to cheaply profit off any residual interest left in it.

In 2007, Oren Peli ’s “ Paranormal Activity ” became one of the biggest independent horror hits of all time. Made for almost nothing, it was effective in part because of its relatable simplicity, telling the story of a haunting through cameras set up in an otherwise mundane suburban home. Like a lot of horror movies, the franchise it spawned spiraled out of control, filling in background of the original couple that never seemed as effective as the pure scares of the first movie. It ended miserably in 2015 with a sixth installment, “ Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension .” Of course, nothing ever dies in the horror business, and Paramount+ sees the launch of “Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin” today, a film related to the first movie in name only.

Emily Bader plays Margot, a young woman who has recently discovered that she was abandoned by a member of an Amish community, and she’s chosen to return to it with a boyfriend, sound guy, and camera to make a documentary about her past. Who was her mother? Why did she leave her? Why are the people who knew her mom so scared to talk about her? Yes, “Next of Kin” is kind of “Scary Amish People” for a bit too long as Margot and her pals stare wide-eyed at the world around them. A scene where they get particularly excited about seeing pigs (gasp) feels almost like parody.

But, of course, there’s more going on in this Amish community than dairy production and a complete lack of Wi-Fi. Margot learns that her mother lived in the room above the one she’s in now, which leads to some disconcerting sounds coming from there in the middle of the night. The best scene in the film's first hour is when Margot investigates and discovers a hidden door, lit only by the kind of night camerawork seen in the still above. It’s the only scene that recalls the creepy effectiveness of the original, wherein the viewer’s eyes dart around the frame, looking for something terrifying before it jumps out.

For the most part, “Next of Kin” is barely a found footage movie. Listen, I’m not trying to be overly critical of an often-malleable form, but one of the benefits of found footage movies is in how they lock us into a POV, forcing us to see a limited frame of action. There are scenes in William Eubank ’s movie that have coverage , shot from different angles as if Margot brought a whole crew with her. It almost feels like the script was written in a traditional form and then crammed into the “PA” found footage style because it’s so inconsistent and only rarely employed well. When you're asking yourself  who is holding the camera, something about a found footage horror movie isn't working.

To be fair, the final act does go enjoyably off the rails in a way that I admired. Eubank finally gets to unleash some of the visual chaos that made his “ Underwater ” memorable, as things get truly terrifying for Margot in the last 20 minutes, and it starts to feel more like a “ Resident Evil ” movie than a “Paranormal Activity” one. Honestly, if you asked people when it was over if it was an “RE” sequel or a “PA” one, they’d probably get it wrong.

On Paramount+ today . 

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

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Horror Movie Review

Paranormal activity (2009) movie review - low budget horror mega hit.

• Director: Oren Peli
• Actors: Katie Featherstone, Micah Sloat
• Writers: Oren Peli
• Producers: Jason Blum, Oren Peli
• Country: United States
• Language: English
• Parental: Peril, Mild Violence, Moderate Language.

After moving into a suburban home a couple becomes increasingly disturbed by a nightly demonic presence.

Welcome to Knockout Horror. It’s the 2nd of October 2022 and we are back with the second instalment in our “KO-Ween” 31 Days of Halloween feature . Today we are taking a look at the 2009 sleeper hit Paranormal Activity.

We are reviewing a horror movie a day for the entirety of October 2022 leading up to Halloween. These reviews will be shorter and more straight to the point than my standard format. We will feature a range of movies from classics to a few indie darlings. You can check out the entire KO-Ween feature by clicking right here .

Paranormal Activity

Paranormal Activity was an enormous sleeper hit back in the autumn of 2009. It first saw screenings at festivals a couple of years before in 2007. The movie wasn’t picked up by a publisher so the director, Oren Peli , had to sit on his hands and wait. The wait, however, paid off as the movie was eventually picked up by Paramount Pictures. A new ending was shot costing over 10 times the initial $15,000 budget the movie was made on, and the rest is history. Paranormal Activity went on to become the second most profitable movie ever and a lot of people loved it.

Paranormal Activity was one of the first movies my fiancée and I watched in the cinema together. At the time, I have to say, we were fairly disappointed. This movie was hyped beyond belief. Bloody Disgusting, in particular, were ridiculously hyperbolic regarding how terrifying it was. We were expecting something fantastic. Instead, we were left a little bit bored and a bit confused by the reactions of the people around us. We watched again a little while later and could appreciate it a lot more.

As we were leaving the cinema, a group of young girls were chatting. This movie was only a 15 and proved a huge hit with young teens. We couldn’t help but overhear their enthusiastic, and loud, conversation. Repeated cries of “That was so scary LOL!!” and “OMG the thing running up the stairs” were only surpassed by one girl’s fearful statement of “Can you believe she is still out there right now??”. It was at that moment it dawned on me that there are people that genuinely believe that this is real. Much of that can be attributed to the manner in which Paranormal Activity was filmed.

A Found Footage Explosion

Paranormal Activity was made on an extremely limited budget. The director, Oren Peli, claimed that he decided to go with a hand held camera to create a more believable scenario. I think the truth probably lies somewhere in between. Budget constraints had to come into that decision somewhere. The actors were only paid $500, initially, for their roles and the movie was filmed and edited at the same time over 7 days.

You will be seeing a lot of mundane, everyday life stuff

What emerged from this was a movie that looked as though an ordinary person was simply documenting their everyday life. Paranormal Activity had a certain authenticity that other movies, heavily laden with special effects, just didn’t have. Paranormal Activity seemed almost real and few movies had managed to accomplish that beforehand.

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One movie does spring to mind, however. It is impossible to refer to a realistic, camcorder filmed horror without mentioning The Blair Witch Project . Paranormal Activity borrowed heavily from this formula and further condensed it into one setting and, predominantly, two actors. If The Blair Witch Project was bare bones, Paranormal Activity was the remaining marrow.

Paranormal Activity’s success offered further confirmation to budding filmmakers that expensive cameras and high production values were not necessary. What followed was an absolute explosion of found footage style movies. Shaky cams were everywhere, special effects were limited or non-existent, rehearsed acting was put to the side in favour of retro-scripting and improvised reactions. Found footage was officially en-vogue and people were immediately divided.

Was Paranormal Activity Actually Good?

When considering Found Footage as a sub-genre, it’s hard to pick out the good from the bad. There have been some fantastic examples but, speaking as an avid Found Footage fan, there has been some garbage. Found Footage offers an opportunity for aspiring directors to get together with some friends and knock out some absolute trash hoping for easy profit. This further divides horror fans and makes the sub-genre, as a whole, look bad.

One of only a couple of additional characters in Paranormal Activity

Paranormal Activity, however, as the movie that kicked off a whole generation of copy-cats, is actually pretty good. We open with Katie ( Katie Featherston ) and Micah ( Micah Sloat ), who have recently moved into a new home, speaking to a camera. Katie claims she has been haunted by an evil presence since she was a child. We are to believe some weird stuff has been going on in the home so Micah sets up cameras to document it.

Almost immediately the cameras capture noises and bizarre events. Katie visits a psychic who suggests Katie is being haunted by a demon. The psychic advises that she contact a demonologist to make contact with, and rid Katie of, the demon. From here on out Katie and Micah are subject to a number of increasingly terrifying events, all of which are documented on cameras placed around the house.

A Simple Idea

It’s the simplicity of Paranormal Activity that works so well. Knowing of the budget and filming constraints, Oren Peli decided to keep the story simple. There are no convoluted events requiring specific special effects. The cast of characters is small and very contained. There are only a couple of filming locations, and there is only one prevailing theme.

This leads to all of the events being presented in an entirely believable fashion. Much of the scares are based around the characters hearing things. We hear bangs and footsteps, the characters sense a presence, things move without any obvious reason. It is all very effective and very much inline with descriptions real people have shared about hauntings. The closer the events stick to real life, the more effective it is.

Most people have heard unexplained noises in the night. Many people have experienced what they would describe as hauntings. Hell, most of us have had something move without remembering moving it ourselves. Whether you believe or you don’t, this style of film making is impactful and works really well. There is also heavy use of infrasound to keep the viewer unsettled. The infrasound also acts as something of an audible clue to upcoming events.

Sometimes Uneven

This is to be expected with the small budget and time constraints. Sometimes Paranormal Activity is a little uneven. Sure, you are never left feeling bored but there is a feeling of routineness to the scares. They roll around in a predictable fashion and it is sometimes very easy to see what is coming. Paranormal Activity was marketed as being something unique and never before seen. The truth is it is a fairly by the numbers haunting/possession horror movie.

There are a lot of night vision bedtime shots with plenty going on in the background

There are certain parts where the techniques used to film a scene are pretty apparent. A good example is the obvious use of magnets on a Ouija planchette. These are never big issues but can remind you that you are watching a low budget movie filmed with limited techniques. Added to this is the reliance on jump scares to keep you on edge.

Acting is a bit of a mixed bag. Katie Featherston is generally really good and very believable. I was not the biggest fan of Micah Sloat, however. I felt like he overacted and was far too aware of playing up to the camera. He was, for all intents and purposes, the cameraman so perhaps this was intentional. Maybe he is playing up to the camera to alleviate some of the awkwardness of the situation.

Let’s remember, as well, that this movie was filmed with no script. Scenarios were give to the actors and they were told to react. It’s hard not to be impressed with what they achieved.

An Easy Horror Movie Watch

Above all else, Paranormal Activity is just an easy movie to enjoy. It never really drags its feet. Scares are frequent and, at times, very effective. It’s not gory and doesn’t feature any sex so is suitable for young teens. The plot makes sense and is never convoluted. Acting is generally good and it doesn’t feel as low budget as some of it’s counterparts.

Obviously this formula has been done to death now and most people are sick of found footage. At the time, however, Paranormal Activity was one of only a couple of films made in this style. Paranormal Activity, as The Blair Witch Project did years before, proved you could make a movie like this and be successful. It also drove a whole new generation of young fans to horror and, for that, it deserves praise. Even if it is isn’t quite as good as people at the time may have claimed.

Should You Watch Paranormal Activity?

Paranormal Activity was a huge hit back in 2009. Filmed on a shoe string budget, it went on to become the second most profitable movie of all time, beaten out for the title only by The Blair Witch Project. Only in the horror genre could this type of thing happen and it is one of the reasons I love horror so much.

While it is sometimes an uneven ride, the acting is generally good, the camerawork is okay and not too shaky, the scares are frequent and often effective and the plot is compelling. It is impossible for Paranormal Activity to live up to the hype surrounding it back in 2009. Few movies could live up to the rhetoric surrounding its release. If you can look past that, there is a movie that is easy to enjoy and easy to appreciate and a movie well worth a watch.

What the creators managed to achieve with so little money is nothing short of incredible. The worst thing I can say about Paranormal Activity is that it spawned a generation of copycats who didn’t treat the Found Footage genre with the respect it deserved and turned it into a much maligned joke.

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Paranormal Activity Reviews

The cast is solid, the directing is great, the set-up works, the scares are built up just right.

Full Review | Dec 14, 2023

Its strengths come in its subtlety, it's a roller-coaster ride that audiences buy into knowing full well that the narrative will take a backseat to being frightened with effective jump-scares.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 22, 2023

Like a rollercoaster, it’s a temporary buzz that fades as soon as the ride is over.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Aug 30, 2023

More a fantastic advertisement for the perils of multi-storey living, than a be-respectful-of-ghosts allegory, Paranormal is still not for the faint of heart, but it has definitely lost a lot of its lustre.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | May 31, 2023

Even when you know they're coming, the scares still send a chill down your spine.

Full Review | Sep 20, 2021

it was awesome in the way that it was extremely, horrendously and torturously stressful... worth it.

Full Review | Sep 1, 2021

Enter the cinema expecting a clever little movie, with some neat ideas and pretty decent performances and, if you let it, Paranormal Activity will give you a pretty uncomfortable nights sleep.

Full Review | Apr 23, 2021

It's one thing to create a movie that functions as good narrative storytelling, but it's another to create that movie knowing exactly how an audience is going to react to stimuli.

Full Review | Dec 12, 2019

Intense, disturbing and with an ending that will leave even the most resolute disbeliever sleeping with the light on, it's as much an experience as it is a piece of entertainment.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Oct 29, 2019

The movie gets enormous mileage out of small, barely noticeable details-a door opening by itself, covers stirred by a breeze from nowhere, a chandelier swinging.

Full Review | Sep 18, 2019

Its scares are undeniably effective, but the overall product lacks a real hook to pull in the audience.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 6, 2019

[Paranormal Activity] is way more scary than Blair Witch because it takes the old conceit of things that go bump into the night, and brings it slyly into a well-to-do, middle class suburb.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 17, 2019

Paranormal Activity has some big flaws, but I find big flaws fairly forgivable in $10,000 films made by amateurs.

Full Review | Oct 30, 2018

Truly a genre re-defining moment, the found-footage phenomenon Paranormal Activity is dollar-for-dollar one of the most financially successful movies ever made.

Full Review | Oct 26, 2018

The "found-footage" format and the slowly ratcheting up of the haunting only added to the terror.

This is a scarily well-made scary little film, although it certainly isn't flawless... But the acting is supremely naturalistic and, for such a small-scale project, it does have an amazingly heightened effect.

Full Review | Aug 30, 2018

The terror was raw and real - all the more so because it was so understated.

Full Review | May 23, 2018

Despite the scares, the film soon becomes repetitive... simply not enough happens. That's a shame, because Paranormal Activity is at times extremely innovative.

Full Review | May 14, 2018

A movie that makes you feel this vulnerable comes along once in a long while.

Full Review | Jan 23, 2018

Though it's slow in the beginning, the ending will leave you terrified and foaming at the mouth for a sequel.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Sep 11, 2017

Paranormal Activity Review

25 Nov 2009

Paranormal Activity

If you want to get ahead in modern Hollywood, work in the Lost Property department. Ever since the Blair Witch tapes were discovered in ’99, there’s been enough ‘found footage’ movies to keep Cash Converters in second-hand cams for a year. After the likes of [•Rec] and Cloverfield and a feeling of Blair Witch burnout, you’d think there were few shocks left in the subgenre, but when a film turns even Steven Spielberg into a gibbering wreck, that’s a gibber worth investigating.

Shot over seven days with a budget of $15,000, Paranormal Activity’s less-is-more approach isn’t just in the production — it’s on the screen. Here’s a movie so brutally committed to simplicity, it doesn’t even do plot: just a situation, repeated over and over again, with the deadening regularity of a bad recurring dream. A couple are terrorised by an unseen force. First, they try to film it — then they fight to stay alive. And that’s it. Split between day (where Katie and Micah survey the aftermath) and night, we’re slowly drawn into a loop of escalating dread — and it conditions you into a state of anticipation with a minimal masterstroke. Each time the film goes nocturnal, the footage switches, not to shakycam, but to the same static bedroom shot. Because the camera never moves, you’re encouraged to scrutinise every single shadow. When your senses are heightened to that extent, any sudden moves deliver twice the force.

Better still, it resists explanation. Minus a series of ominous footprints, the unknown stays unknown; the entity has no name, no past and no apparent motive. Oren Peli might be a first-time filmmaker, but he’s a brave one — against the trend of explicit torture porn, and armed with a thumping sound design, he leaves everything to the imagination. It’s only as scary as you make it.

Weirdly, there are laughs. If we compile the Worst Movie Boyfriends, Micah Sloat’s alpha-male is a dead cert. At first, he seems driven by that male urge to protect and solve; soon enough, he’s turning his girlfriend’s distress into his own surveillance project, just falling short of knocking up a Ouji board in the shed. He’s simply too agonising to feel anything for but, truth is, there wouldn’t be much of a movie without him.

Which, really, marks the inbuilt weakness of the reality horror format. For all its authentic edge, this is still pulpy poltergeist fiction, and the characters are fixed onto the rails of narrative convention. Peli can only keep the wheels on the ghost train hidden for so long, and the final third caves in to some hokey horror tropes (don’t- go-in-the-loft!) and a climax that delivers a shuddering jolt but, on further scrutiny, feels suspiciously neat. In search of a thrill, the film loses a little of its ‘realness’.

This is, however, very much an experience any horror fan (hell, anyone with a working nervous system) should consider. Primarily because it’s so successful at turning something as mundane as a slammed door into a skin-crawling event. Next time you hear something go bump in the night, there’s a chance — just a chance — that thoughts will turn to that static bedroom... and a hint of something moving.

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• Paranormal Activity

F irst things first. Paranormal Activity did not chill me to the bone, freak me out or leave me sleepless for weeks. It is not the scariest film ever, but then nor was The Blair Witch Project which became one of the highest-grossing films of all time in ratio to the thruppence ha'penny or whatever for which it was made.

Oren Peli 's ultra-low budget film has already achieved box-office phenomenon status after a mighty run in America and there is certainly something interesting about Paranormal Activity . But it isn't the business aspect, nor the spooky factor, the things going bump in the night while a bickering young couple – We're engaged to be engaged" – try to sleep in their smart San Diego starter home.

What's really at play isn't a demon or poltergeist which knocks keys off the table or makes the bedroom door snap open; rather, it's the relationship the characters develop with film itself, an obsession with watching and recording footage. The character of Heather in Blair Witch was possessed by little more than a desire to film, and Micah (the actors use their own names for their characters here) is equally committed to capturing his girlfriend Katie's trauma on his new high-definition video camera.

The film's most fascinating moments are thus the time-lapsed ones of the couple asleep, caught in night vision mode by the camera positioned religiously on its tripod every night, at the end of the bed. We, the audience, then watch the couple speeded up with the time code ticking away as they toss and turn until the replay slows down to playback speed, signalling something scary is about to happen. This is an ingenious cinematic device, a new way of ratcheting up tension and arriving at release.

In a bid for verisimilitude, Paranormal Activity weakly disguises itself as "found footage" and, despite the late appearance of cloven footprints, it never really convinces on the demonic level. Yet it does partly succeed as a relationship movie, asking why a nice girl like her would even be with an egomaniac like him – Go off with the demon, I kept thinking. And as a document of a generation's refusal to believe anything unless it's on film, it's truly troubling.

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Paranormal Activity

After moving into a suburban home, a couple becomes increasingly disturbed by a nightly demonic presence. After moving into a suburban home, a couple becomes increasingly disturbed by a nightly demonic presence. After moving into a suburban home, a couple becomes increasingly disturbed by a nightly demonic presence.

• Katie Featherston
• Micah Sloat
• Mark Fredrichs
• 1.3K User reviews
• 318 Critic reviews
• 68 Metascore
• 3 wins & 12 nominations

• Exorcism Nanny
• (uncredited)
• Dr. Johann Averies

• Lt. Randy Hudson

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• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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• Trivia The actors weren't given scripts but were given guidelines on how to behave or what to discuss in their scenes.
• Goofs (at around 18 mins) Towards the beginning of the movie, when Micah and Katie are talking with the psychologist, there is a hard cut from the doctor to Katie as the doctor is talking, but the dialogue does not skip. Since the movie is supposed to be entirely self-filmed footage, this would imply that either there were two cameras filming at once, or that they did a second "take" with the doctor, both of which are unlikely.

Katie : You promised me - don't look at me like that! - you promised me you weren't going to mess with that stuff.

Micah : No. I promised you I wasn't going to buy a Ouija board. I didn't buy a Ouija board. I borrowed a Ouija board.

• Crazy credits Fans who submitted their name on the official website during the film's theatrical run were treated with having their name listed in the film's ending credits on the DVD/Blu-ray release of the film as thanks from Paramount for making the film such a success.
• 1. There is a scene in the Theatrical Cut not present in the Director's Cut that takes place early on, where Katie and Micah wake up and find her keys thrown from the kitchen counter to the floor.
• 2. The low frequency tone that occurs when the demon is present is not quite as loud in the Director's cut. There is only one instance of the demon whispering in the Theatrical Cut; there are at least three in the Director's Cut, all of which are heard in the bedroom at night.
• 3. A lot of the demon noises - the loud growl followed by the bang, the footsteps, even the shadows that appear on the bedroom doors - were completely re-dubbed and retouched. All of these scenes are much, much louder/noticeable in theaters for jump scares. There seem to be at least two added "shadow" effects - another on the bedroom door, and a silhouette in the hallway - in the Director's Cut, whereas the Theatrical Cut only has one shadow used.
• 4. The night when the demon plays the door games with Katie and Micah (opening and slamming it shut, knocking furiously) has been re-dubbed, as well. The knocking is much faster and louder in the Theatrical Cut.
• 5. There's some added dialogue between Katie and Micah where they discuss how the stress is negatively affecting their lives. She says she's failing her university course and won't pass unless she "does something drastic" on her midterm. He says he lost a large sum of money playing the stock market earlier, and that he'll be taking a break for awhile.
• 6. The demon's daytime attack is completely absent. The only time we get a good look at the picture that is smashed and clawed is when the two run up and down the hallway during the night to get away from the demon.
• 7. There's an extra video attached to the "Goodbye Dianne" explanation at the computer. There is at least two minutes of added footage of the woman's ordeal, which has been heavily used in the TV commercials. Micah shows Katie footage of Dianne's demonic possession and subsequent exorcism as she is tied to a bed. Her appearance transforms from healthy to disheveled and dark, with large cuts on her face and body. Eventually, the footage shows that the exorcism was unsuccessful, and the possessed Dianne becomes so destructive that she chews her own arm off to the elbow.
• 8. The double-layered voice Katie projects in bed when she says, "Everything will be fine from now on" (and later screaming downstairs) uses a different effect to achieve this. Unlike the Theatrical Cut, the two voices are very distinct.
• 9. The ending is completely changed. Katie awakes shortly after midnight on the final night, gets out of bed and stares at Micah for roughly three hours. Unlike the Theatrical Cut, she does not move to his side of the bed to continue watching him, and the sheets do not fly off of his body. Instead, she goes straight downstairs. After Micah is awakened by the scream, he runs downstairs and we hear the ensuing scuffle. Like before, Katie slowly climbs the stairs, except the footstep effect is slightly altered and when she enters the room, she is holding a knife and covered in blood. Micah's body is not thrown at the camera; he remains downstairs. Katie sits down on the floor against the bed and proceeds to rock back and forth, knife in hand, for several days. We hear her ignore phone calls and the door bell. Eventually, one of her friends comes in to check on her and finds Micah's body, which momentarily interrupts Katie's rocking. The friend lets out a scream and runs out of the house. Twenty minutes later, we hear the police knock and enter, warning anyone in the house to "make themselves known" because they have their weapons drawn. As they search the first floor, it appears as if the demon has left Katie's body: we see the light to the attic turn on, then off, as if the demon went back into hiding. The police come upstairs, find Katie and warn her to drop the weapon. She's dazed, running toward them yelling, "Where's Micah!? Where's Micah?!". The door to the attic slams shut, startling the police so much that one accidentally shoots Katie dead. The final sixty seconds of the film shows the confused policemen, asking "Where did that [noise] come from?" and ultimately declaring the house "clear". The film fades to black, and a text appears that dedicates the film to Katie and Micah.
• Connections Edited into Paranormal Activity: The Chronology (2012)
• Soundtracks Paralyzed Performed by Rock Kills Kid

User reviews 1.3K

• gauthierdumonde
• Oct 27, 2009
• So they lived in the house how long and never noticed the trap door in the closet ???
• Wouldn't most people, like, ASK FOR HELP FROM SOMEBODY ANYBODY ???
• Is this a true story?
• October 16, 2009 (United States)
• United States
• Official Facebook
• Official site
• Hiện Tượng Siêu Nhiên
• Bavarian Drive, Rancho Peñasquitos, San Diego, California, USA
• Paramount Pictures
• Solana Films
• Dreamworks Pictures
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• $15,000 (estimated)
• $107,918,810
• Sep 27, 2009
• $193,355,933

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• Runtime 1 hour 26 minutes
• Dolby Digital

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10 years ago a little film called The Blair Witch Project took the country by storm, taking in nearly $150 million at the domestic box office. The film was shot on a miniscule $22,000 production budget and made the Guinness Book of World Records for Top Box Office Budget Ratio for its $240.5 worldwide gross. 10 years later, we have a brand new and much-more improved Blair Witch Project with Paranormal Activity , one of the most chillingly effective horror films in recent memory.

The comparisons will continue to be made between The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity likely for the rest of the year as it should (BETTER!) get a wide release in the coming weeks, after a highly successful limited run. Like Blair Witch, Paranormal Activity had a tiny budget of just $11,000 and the main characters (Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat) go by their real first names in the film. They also play the film up in a similar manner, making you think this actually happened to these people. Before the film started, there was a notice which Paramount Pictures “thanked” the families of Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat. Yeah. Still, it works because these unknown actors (not for long) deliver vitally authentic performances that draw you into their spooky plight, which is the biggest difference of the film when compared to Blair Witch.

Instead of following around three dorks in a Maryland forest, we follow the home trauma of Featherston and Sloat as they try to figure out the mysterious things that have been happening to them. See, Katie has been “haunted” for most of her life, since she was about 8 years old and it seems to follow her everywhere she goes. Recently, when Katie and Micah move in together, the hauntings start to occur yet again and the day-trader/wannabe ghost hunter Micah decides to buy a high-quality movie camera and document what really happens in their room when they’re asleep, when most of the spooky sh*t goes down. The result is perhaps one of the most effectively scary horror films of all time and, better yet, one that even might translate better for home viewing as well. Remember when you went to see The Blair Witch Project in the theaters and were really spooked out and you couldn’t wait to own it on DVD or VHS? Then remember how utterly disappointing that home viewing was? Yeah, well while this theater certainly demands at least one viewing in the theater, I think it will still retain a lot of its impact on DVD or Blu-ray. For one, there have been incredible advances in home theater technology in the past decade, but the main reason is that since this takes place totally in one home throughout the entire movie, I imagine it would be even creepier watching it in your own home on a fat home theater system with all the lights off. I’m not saying you shouldn’t see this in the theater, by any means. I’m just saying that once you see it in the theater and then see it months later on DVD/BD, I just think this film is a much better fit for home viewing, compared to Blair Witch.

People will likely think this is a true tale, aside from the brief notice at the start of the film, but also from the wonderful performances from Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat. They are both very effective and convincing as an on-screen couple, which is also aided by a wonderful script by writer-director Oren Peli (who also produced and edited the film). They have great chemistry and accurately portray the innate intricacies of being a couple incredibly well. They fight over stupid stuff and Micah is constantly trying to get Katie to use the camera for more recreational bedtime activities… The script is also quite brilliant because it gives us a nice ratio of just normal everyday interactions between Katie and Micah, which makes us care about this couple and root for them when all this crazy sh*t goes down… and trust me, it’s plenty crazy.

Writer-director Oren Peli is probably the real star of the show, though, as he has crafted one of the most incredibly effective horror films in at least the past decade. It’s all atmospheric scares too, with probably the least amount of gore I’ve seen in a horror film and a slick use of the microscopic budget to create some incredible scares. While it isn’t campy at all, Peli also injects a lot more humor than I expected, shown throughout the normal-day pieces of the film, but, once the lights go out in the bedroom, it’s all about the scares and they’re done magnificently well. Peli is also smart enough to know that horror audiences know the genre and know when they are expected to be scared… and Peli’s film will manage to scare the sh*t out of the most savvy of horror fans that could likely see every scare coming in a lesser horror film. Peli also has serious skills as an editor, with a perfect mix of these daytime/every-day moments and the nighttime scares and it’s rather amazing that this, one of the best horror films I’ve seen in years, was Peli’s directorial debut, and that he accomplished so much on such a shoestring budget.

Paranormal Activity is the real f*cking deal, folks. You get a little bit of every thing here, from laughs, cute chicks and some of the scariest material you’ve likely ever seen on film. The marketing campaign for the film tells you not to see this film alone, and you shouldn’t because you should call every friend you have and take them to the theater with you, because it’s one hell of a horror ride that will surely sweep the nation once it gets a national release.

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‘paranormal activity: the ghost dimension’: film review.

Attempting to unravel many of the knotty questions raised by the franchise’s convoluted mythology, this sixth installment in the series brings events to an overdue conclusion.

By Justin Lowe

Justin Lowe

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An unprecedented phenomenon when it debuted from Paramount in 2009 (following the substitution of a revised ending), Oren Peli’s Paranormal Activity launched a six-film franchise based on an urban legend-like haunted house tale. Earning more than $193 million worldwide on a $15,000 budget, it also helped spawn the sometimes regrettable found-footage horror genre. So Peli’s and producer Jason Blum’s decision to bring the series to a conclusion with this final installment may seem surprising in comparison to the typical strategy of overexploiting a horror franchise, but in truth Peli hasn’t directed another film in the series since the original, moving on to a producing role instead, while Blumhouse has taken the low-budget, high-concept Paranormal Activity model and created similar successes with horror series The Purge, Sinister and Insidious .

With their first 3D release, the producers turn the directing role over to longtime Paranormal Activity series editor and producer Gregory Plotkin (making his feature directorial debut), although this time out Paramount is launching a very different distribution strategy for the film. Along with its upcoming Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse release, the studio has negotiated much briefer theatrical windows than normal with a group of theater chains, reportedly in return for a percentage of the stepped-up VOD release receipts. Other exhibitors have emphatically spurned the arrangement, however, limiting the opening to an estimated 1,600 theaters. The low-budget feature will also be directly competing with Vin Diesel’s blockbuster-scaled supernatural thriller The Last Witch Hunter, leaving the opening-weekend outcome for The Ghost Dimension uncharacteristically uncertain. Read more Paramount, AMC Theatres Strike Unprecedented Pact to Shorten Release Windows

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Rather than meaningfully reconnecting with the most compelling characters from the earlier films, the final installment returns to the original house haunted by the demonic entity known as Toby, or more precisely the property, since the home in Santa Rosa, Calif. where Katie (Chloe Csengery ) and Kristi (Jessica Brown) were indoctrinated into a mysterious cult, burned down when they were children. The new owners of the rebuilt home are Ryan (Chris J. Murray) and Emily (Brit Shaw), a married couple with a young daughter. As Christmas quickly approaches, Leila (Ivy George) is excited when her uncle Mike (Dan Gill) arrives to spend the holiday with his brother and sister-in-law, along with Emily’s friend Skyler (Olivia Taylor Dudley). While adorning the house with decorations removed from storage, Mike finds an 80s-era , custom-built VHS camera and a box of tapes. Technophile Ryan gets the device working and discovers that its sophisticated lens reveals some type of mysterious energy field manifesting in the house that’s only visible to the video-cam, a phenomenon lamely described as “spirit photography.” Playing back the tapes, Ryan and Mike review disturbing footage of Kristi’s and Katie’s grandma Lois ( Hallie Foote) and a strange man training the girls to communicate with the spirit world. As the manifestation of the aberrant energy field intensifies in his home and Leila begins speaking aloud to an ominous invisible friend, Ryan begins to suspect that the same evil presence that stalked Katie and Kristi may be after his daughter as well. Narratively, thematically and stylistically The Ghost Dimension barely diverges from the format of the first three films, as nervous homeowners take up video cameras to record the mysterious occurrences that appear to be targeting their loved ones. Even at this late stage in the evolution of the franchise, logical lapses in filmmaking technique undercut the integrity of the found-footage format, but continuity was never one of the series’ strong points, a shortcoming easily forgiven by fans. Read more Top Theater Group Won’t Oppose Paramount’s VOD Revolution

The Bottom Line Over-promises, then under-delivers.

What may be less acceptable, however, is the film’s unaccountably weak effort to sort out the mythology concerning the series of demonic hauntings , instead stacking the deck with a tricked-out plot device that’s an awkward fit with the more traditionally supernatural events that occurred earlier. Primarily referencing, and occasionally depicting, events from Paranormal Activity 3 , the current film’s team of four screenwriters, replacing longtime scripter Christopher Landon, fails to sufficiently clarify the actions and motivations of the series’ principal characters, who at this point have practically vanished from the storyline anyway. Performances are fairly perfunctory overall, never achieving a level of terror commensurate with the threats that the characters face. Plotkin proceeds much in the manner of the foregoing lineup of rotating directors, setting up a chronology of nightly video shoots, roaming the house with a handheld camera, then relying primarily on loud noises and jump scares for impact, although the 3D format allows for more sophisticated special effects, particularly those recorded by the mysterious video camera. Some may remain nostalgic for the low-budget practical effects that enlivened the first few movies, while a major ripoff of a climactic scene from a classic supernatural thriller may even turn off those loyalists as well, limiting Paranormal Activity’ s legacy to the first few installments. Overall, it’s been a fairly entertaining run, but it’s unclear whether the films as a whole will ever rate as a classic horror franchise, although it may be unwise to rule out any further occurrences of Paranormal Activity at this point. 

Production companies: Blumhouse , Solana Films, Room 101

Cast: Chris J. Murray, Brit Shaw, Ivy George, Olivia Taylor Dudley, Dan Gill, Jessica Brown, Chloe Csengery , Don McManus, Hallie Foote, Cara Pifko , Michael Krawic , Alden Lovekamp , Mark Steger Director: Gregory Plotkin Screenwriters: Jason Harry Pagan, Andrew Deutschman , Adam Robitel , Gavin Heffernan Producers: Jason Blum, Oren Peli Executive producers:  Steven R. Molen Steven Schneider  Director of photography: John W. Rutland Production designer:  Nathan Amondson     Costume designer:  Lisa Lovaas Editor:  Michel Aller Rated R, 88 minutes

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Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin Review

A swing and amish..

Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin debuts on Paramount+ on Oct. 29.

As someone whose roots in horror are very tied up in the release of 1999’s The Blair Witch Project, I’ve been an ardent champion of found footage for a long time. When it’s done right, found-footage horror can be terribly imaginative and immersive while remaining budget friendly. Unfortunately, years and years of focus on the latter aspect of the subgenre has taken focus away from the former. There’s no better avatar for that transition than the Paranormal Activity franchise, which like Blair Witch, has its roots in a viral internet campaign that catapulted the austere first film to massive box office success. Cheap to make, Paramount and later Blumhouse quickly started churning out sequels that introduced new camera gimmicks and a surprisingly deep mythology, but also increasingly strained credulity around why any of these people are still filming instead of running for the hills. Rather than furthering the established continuity, Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin reboots the found-footage stalwart for Paramount+, setting up new villains and demons should audiences connect with this film in the same way they did with the original. That’s putting the cart before the horse in a big way, though: Next of Kin brings nothing new to either the Paranormal Activity franchise or found-footage horror, making it a disappointment on multiple fronts.

The first question of found-footage, and the hardest to continue to answer throughout the film: who are these people and why won’t they put their damn cameras down!? Next of Kin goes with the old standby of “documentary filmmakers, one of which is the subject of the documentary.” That’s Margot (Emily Bader), a young woman looking for her birth family. She makes contact with Samuel Beiler (Henry Ayres-Brown), a relative taking a year off from his Amish community. Samuel agrees to introduce Margot to her long-lost family, so she travels deep into the woods to the Beiler farm with hired sound guy Dale (Dan Lippert) and partner Chris (Roland Buck III), a cinematographer whose pricey gear gives the Paranormal Activity franchise a major visual facelift, for better or worse.

Consumer camera tech is a crucial component of making a found-footage horror film feel authentic and immediate. While Next of Kin’s more professional cinematography is crisp and less static than previous Paranormal Activity movies, it loses the distinct visual language the locked-off surveillance-style angles gave earlier entries in a sea of samey handheld horror. Too often, Next of Kin is shot like any old found-footage horror movie, so how scary you find it will rely heavily on your experience with the franchise and with the subgenre in general… that is to say, if you’re familiar with either, it’s not very scary.

The film takes very few risks in constructing its scares, with a number of long pans around dark rooms ending with something popping out from the location second down your list of most likely places to be surprised from. There are even scares that veer straight into derivative territory, calling to mind better-executed moments from more confident films ([REC] fans may start to get deja vu at times during the third act).

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Further, Next of Kin sometimes seems to drop the found-footage conceit altogether for no clear reason, and not when it would make sense, like when the characters are being chased by a demon. On the first night, Margot’s estranged grandfather Jacob (Tom Nowicki) has the village’s kids sing a creepy song and the camera glides around the room, in for closeups of slamming fists and faces of Amish folk that we’ve been expressly told at this point hate being filmed. It’s a moment of sensory overload, but one that has no real impact because of the distracting conflict between what it can look like versus, based on the reality of the story, what it should look like. Next of Kin even flirts with slow motion at times, first introducing it as a joke but later calling back the camera’s function in egregious fashion during a death scene.

Next of Kin director William Eubank and writer/franchise vet Christopher Landon seem to look back on the original Paranormal Activity’s ethos of “less is more” with a laugh and a shake of the head. The only way Next of Kin really improves on Paranormal Activity’s past is by moving the series’ action out of southern California (spookiest of all locations) to rural Pennsylvania. The remote Beiler farm itself is perhaps the scariest aspect of the film, full of labyrinthine passages and farm buildings capable of evoking an eerie atmosphere day or night. Chris’ drone camera is occasionally and effectively employed to highlight how isolated the characters are on the farm, but it’s perhaps the one piece of tech Eubank restrains himself in using. With drones capable of self-flying and tracking subjects these days, it feels like the franchise missed an opportunity to do something fresh with its new toys.

What’s your favorite found-footage movie?

The young filmmakers Next of Kin follows aren’t the most exciting bunch. Margot and Chris, neither with much of a personality to begin with, each become so consumed with the business of making their documentary and gaining access to parts of the farm they’re being steered away from that the personal reasons behind the project start to lose focus. Sound guy Dale, Next of Kin’s comic relief, lightens things up considerably when he’s on screen, a gently giant goofball who’s not afraid to let the young girls of the village give him a truly hilarious Amish makeover early on that he commits to for the rest of the movie.

Next of Kin does at least shake things up a little when it comes to who’s really pulling the strings on the Beiler farm, giving cut-and-paste antagonists like Jacob at least a slightly more interesting part to play in revealing the nature of the demonic presence plaguing the characters. But Next of Kin doesn’t spend much time on the nuance of the villains’ motivations, capping things off with a predictably open ending that seems more aimed at keeping Paramount’s options open for future installments than satisfyingly wrapping up its own story.

Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin is an unimaginative, tired reboot for the franchise. With a focus on style over substance and a predictable plot, Next of Kin doesn’t offer anything new for fans of the franchise or for those looking for some new innovations in the found-footage subgenre.

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Every Paranormal Activity Movie Ranked From Worst To Best

Every so often, in the world of horror cinema, a movie comes along that's not only a smash hit but also changes the game. "Paranormal Activity" is definitely one of those movies, and we're still feeling its aftershock well over a decade later. Written and directed by Oren Peli, the first film was only made for $15,000 — which is staggeringly low for a horror film, even in the late-2000s.

Needless to say, with a nearly-$200 million box office gross, the film definitely left a sizable impact on people. From there, Paramount Pictures got dollar signs in their eyes and began pushing out a new entry almost every year throughout the 2010s. So the "Paranormal Activity" franchise became a yearly staple of the Halloween season for a good while, right alongside the "Saw" films .

However, not all sequels are created equal, especially in this series, with some delivering big screams and others falling flat on their faces. So grab your crucifix and flip on night vision mode because this is every "Paranormal Activity" movie ranked from worst to best.

7. Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension

It's safe to say that the 3D movie craze of the 2010s, jump-started by the likes of "Avatar" and "Alice in Wonderland," is now long dead. While the format is far from fully defunct, it's certainly no longer pushed with the same frequency and ferocity that it was 10 years ago.

We mention this because it feels like "Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension" was only made to cash in while the trend was still vaguely hot. Still, even by 2015, people had caught onto just how cheap of a gimmick 3D could be, and nowhere is that more evident than here. Found footage horror  and 3D could be a potentially intriguing combination, but this test run was far from a home run.

Even as far as the story goes, it's a mediocre culmination of all the series' convoluted plot threads, barely bolstered by average performances from the leads. The film's biggest highlight, and we're using that term in the loosest sense, are the various callbacks to previous films. Additionally, the only other slightly noteworthy development is finally getting to see Tobi, the oft-mentioned demon, in physical form for the first time. However, the 3D effects serve as nothing more than moderately intriguing window dressing to decorate an otherwise underwhelming movie. It's as generic a horror film as you can get and a true disappointment when you consider how influential the first film was back in 2009.

6. Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin

"Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin" is definitely a step up from "The Ghost Dimension," but truthfully that's not saying much. The film is, as of this writing, the final "Paranormal Activity" entry and stands as a rather weak final gasp for the once-dominant horror franchise.

This stands as the first and only entry in the series to bypass a theatrical release in favor of a spot on the Paramount+ streaming service. A major improvement over "The Ghost Dimension" that becomes evident immediately is the lack of any 3D, making for a far easier viewing experience. That said, however, the improvements really begin and end right there as the film's story is just as underwhelming as its predecessor. This is where the storyline concerning Tobi, Kristi (Sprague Grayden), and Katie (Katie Featherson) is fully abandoned in favor of a new self-contained narrative. Instead we meet Margot (Emily Bader) and Chris (Roland Buck III), two documentarians who travel to an Amish community to make a film about Margot's past. What ensues is something more in line with "The Last Exorcism" more so than anything resembling a "Paranormal Activity" movie. If this is truly the series' swan song, then it's a lukewarm conclusion to what was once a staple of the Halloween cinematic season.

5. Paranormal Activity 4

Jumping the shark is defined as a television show or a film series that has finally exhausted any of the creativity it started with. Simply put, "Paranormal Activity 4" is the film that finally jumped the shark for this series, abandoning any of the effective qualities of its predecessors.

"Paranormal Activity 4" starts off with some promise, introducing us to a new protagonist, Alex Nelson ( Kathryn Newton ) who becomes suspicious of the neighbor next door. Following an incident, the neighbor's son, Robbie (Brady Allen), is forced to stay with Alex and her family, including her younger brother, Wyatt (Aiden Lovekamp). As the film goes on, things begin going bump in the night with its presence even highlighted by an Xbox Kinect — one of the film's only highlights. However, things get confusing when not only is it revealed that Robbie's mother is Katie, but it seems that Wyatt is actually Hunter from "Paranormal Activity 2."

So does this mean Katie lost track of Hunter between the events of the second and fourth films? And if so, how did the Nelsons come to adopt him? We're given very little time to digest this as in zero time flat, and the film slams into a very rushed climax, even ending on a cheap jump scare. While we can't speak for every fan of the franchise, this was most certainly the film that caused more than a few to abandon ship entirely.

4. Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones

After the downgrade that was "Paranormal Activity 4," the franchise definitely needed a bit of fine-tuning. The result of this was the pseudo-spin off film, "Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones," which was released in early 2014. After the rather confounding ending of the fourth film, fans wanted some answers, and they most certainly got them ... sort of.

The film opts to diverge from Katie and Kristi's story in favor of a new protagonist, a high schooler named Jesse Arista (Andrew Jacobs). After the death of a strange woman in his apartment building, Jesse, along with his two friends, Marisol (Gabrielle Walsh) and Hector (Jorge Diaz), soon find themselves thrust into a strange situation. Soon enough they find themselves unraveling the mystery around the cult of which Katie and Kristi were forced into. They eventually stumble across a mysterious door in the house of Lois (Hallie Foote), Katie and Kristi's cultish grandmother, which sends them back in time. Soon Jesse finds himself back in 2006, where he emerges in Katie and Micah's house, revealing what happened off-screen during the first film's climax.

It's a solid twist and one that keeps the film from being fully disposable — which it sadly is for the most part. Despite some above-average acting from the main cast, there's little to say about this film, as it lacks the subtlety that made the first three films so creepy.

3. Paranormal Activity 2

With how big of a hit the first "Paranormal Activity" was," a sequel was greenlit and put into production almost immediately. This resulted in "Paranormal Activity 2," made for a $3 million budget and released in late 2010 to another impressive Halloween season box office gross.

In this sequel, which is actually a prequel, we meet Katie's sister, Kristi, and the rest of her family. This includes her husband, Daniel (Brian Boland), his daughter, Ali (Molly Ephraim), and their infant child, Hunter, as well as their housekeeper, a Latina woman named Martine (Vivis Colombetti). After what is suspected to be a home invasion, the family invests in a full setup of security cameras inside and outside of their house. What then ensues is night upon night of doors slamming, kitchenware flying everywhere, and pool equipment malfunctioning. Add to that the realization that this entity is after Hunter, and it definitely raises the stakes in a big bad way.

The sequel also does a good job of teasing details of Katie and Kristi's childhood, saving the major elaborations for the third film. Also, with the addition of more cameras, it gives the film the chance to try different setups and scares, expanding beyond the first film's limited scope. While not quite as terrifying as the first film, "Paranormal Activity 2" still delivers on more of the same tense, low-key atmosphere.

2. Paranormal Activity 3

"Paranormal Activity 3" had an admittedly tough task ahead of it, finally revealing Katie and Kristi's backstory that'd been teased throughout the first two movies. This presented a unique challenge as Katie (Chloe Csengery) and Kristi (Jessica Tyler Brown) were children during the 1980s, meaning the film needed to embrace the format of the era: VHS. Through these old tapes, we see the two sisters living life alongside their mother, Julie (Lauren Bittner), and her boyfriend, Dennis (Chris Smith), a videographer. This provides the perfect excuse for Dennis to have various cameras, as well as the know-how to create the film's main gimmick: a camera mounted on an oscillating fan.

This results in some effectively chilling moments, wherein the threat is slowly revealed as the camera gradually moves from left to right. Through these haunting moments we learn that the demon we've seen throughout the first two movies was originally masquerading as Kristi's imaginary friend, Tobi. We also learn that Katie and Kristi have been groomed for demonic purposes since childhood, as their grandmother is revealed as a member of a cult.

"Paranormal Activity 3" is admittedly where the series began teetering on shark-jumping, but the film doesn't end up doing anything to insult the audience's intelligence. If you want to end your jaunt with the series early, this is not a bad conclusion.

1. Paranormal Activity

When it comes to the "Paranormal Activity" series, its first outing will always stand as its the best one in the series. The film follows Katie and Micah, a couple who've just moved into their new home in San Diego. However, not long after arriving, things begin going bump in the night, with Katie noting this has been happening to her since she was little.

This leads Micah to set up a camera while they sleep, capturing footage night after night of the titular paranormal activity in their home. However, as the film goes on, it becomes clear that, whatever this sinister entity is, it's after Katie, eventually possessing her near the film's conclusion. The film concludes with Katie, fully possessed, killing Micah before revealing her demonic face in an effective final jump scare.

Simply put, the first "Paranormal Activity" came out at a time where the horror genre needed new life amidst a sea of remakes and sequels. Forgoing any flashy gimmicks, the film makes do with very little, eliciting effective scares with its sound design and frequent stretches of quiet. The film is honestly tailor-made to be watched in your living room with the lights off very late at night.

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• DVD & Streaming

Paranormal Activity

• Horror , Mystery/Suspense

Content Caution

In Theaters

• September 25, 2009
• Katie Featherston as Katie; Micah Sloat as Micah

Home Release Date

• December 29, 2009

Distributor

• Paramount Pictures

Movie Review

Some people have bad dreams. Some even have night terrors. But both of those would be a welcome break for Katie. Since she was 8 she’s had what amounts to an evil spirit siphoning off her slumber.

Nobody else has actually seen this thing or shared in Katie’s horrors. But she’s convinced that a demonic boogieman burned her house down when she was a kid. And since then she’s suffered with nightmares and had a recurring sense of a shadowy figure lurking at the foot of her bed.

Of course, the now twentysomething Katie neglected to mention any of that to her boyfriend Micah before he moved in. (How do you bring up the topic of a demonic entity that lounges around in your bedroom?) Even after he finds out, though, her knucklehead beau doesn’t seem to mind all that much. To him, the stories are just a great excuse to go out and buy a cool video camera so he can try to capture shadowy thumps and bumps in the night. Not that he really believes in any of this stuff.

Katie, however, believes . And she gets a bit frantic after a visiting psychic reports that negative energy or attempts at poltergeist communication could make things worse. So Katie begs Micah to drop the late-night videoing.

It’s too late.

Micah’s already recorded the bedroom door moving all on its own at 2 a.m. And he’s getting excited. He’s determined to “solve the problem.” So it’s full steam ahead on the paranormal express.

Positive Elements

In spite of some of his goofy choices, it’s apparent that Micah has strong feelings of protection and love for his girlfriend. As their situation becomes progressively more dangerous, he puts his wellbeing (and eventually his life) on the line to stand by Katie and save her from her spiritual stalker.

Spiritual Elements

The whole premise of Paranormal Activity revolves around dark supernatural happenings taking place in a young couple’s home. The frightened pair never turns to the church or God for help, however. Instead, Micah and Katie consult a professional psychic who professes to be an expert in hauntings perpetrated by “human spirits.”

The psychic says he quickly senses that the threat is demonic in nature. And that’s when he warns Katie not to “encourage” it by giving it any attention. He strongly states that using such “communication” tools as Ouija boards might have disastrous results.

Katie listens and takes the advice to heart. Micah doesn’t. He pledges to obey Katie’s new rules about dealing with the demon, and his oath ends with, “So help me God!” But he’s already borrowed a Ouija board, so the damage is already done. (Its pointer ultimately begins to move on its own and it bursts into flames.)

Katie talks of praying as a child that the demon would go away. Almost catatonic, she clutches a small wooden cross so tightly that her hand bleeds.

Sexual Content

Katie wears a number of formfitting tank tops and T-shirts (with lightweight shorts) in and out of bed. She reveals cleavage on a number of occasions. Micah wears a T-shirt and boxers to bed.

Early on, Micah tries to tempt Katie into performing a striptease and having sex with him on-camera, but she refuses his advances. He does fire up the camera after having sex—he is shirtless and she has the sheet pulled up over her chest. We see them kiss several times. They spoon as they sleep. Micah zooms the camera in on Katie’s clothed backside as she walks up a staircase. And he tries to peek into the bathroom with it as she’s sitting on the toilet. (She slams the door.)

A few illustrations in a book on demonology are of horned creatures with bare female breasts.

Violent Content

Doors bang and heavy things thump and crash through a variety of jump scenes, but the violence connected to all the smashing and screaming is, with one exception, out of the camera’s frame. That exception involves Micah being picked up and thrown through a door.

In other cases we see the results of the offscreen thumps and shrieks. After being dragged out of the room by an invisible presence, for instance, Katie lifts her shirt to reveal teeth marks on her lower back. We also see her in a T-shirt covered in blood.

Crude or Profane Language

Close to 40 f-words. A dozen s-words. “D‑‑n,” “a‑‑” and “h‑‑‑” pop up. God’s and Jesus’ names are each misused about a half-dozen times. (God’s is combined once with “d‑‑n.”)

Drug and Alcohol Content

Back in 1999 a little independent horror flick called  The Blair Witch Project took moviegoers by surprise. That shaky-handed, one-camera pseudo docu-thriller was presented as an amateur movie project made by three students who supposedly disappeared during its making. The film itself was mediocre. But the viral popularity that sprung from its groundbreaking use of the Internet—including a Web campaign that suggested the footage it contained was the real deal—made the little film into a mega-blockbuster.

Paranormal Activity has very clearly pulled its filming and distribution strategy from that same successful playbook.

Reportedly shot by writer/director Oren Peli in his own house on a miniscule budget of only $15,000 ( Blair Witch came in at $60,000), the mostly ad-libbed piece was created in a week. When the big studio boys picked it up, they were intent on re-shooting something more polished for the theatrical run. But after test-screening the original, the audience’s gasping reaction changed their minds.

That led to midnight-only showings of the pic in a handful of college towns. And Internet blitzes on Facebook pages and Twitter. Voilà, box office gold scraped from the sheer face of the cultural cliff. Impressed, an executive from a rival studio told Deadline Hollywood , “Look out, cuz there’s a freight train coming, and Paramount is going to make a TON of cash on this pickup. Cuz they ain’t spending anything on it, and who knows where the ceiling is!”

Considering the fact that this slowly paced, one camera, low-budgeter eschews CGI special effects for long minutes spent watching the two central characters sleep (Coming next summer! Grass grows in Vermont!) , its preternatural popularity may seem totally unbelievable. In fact, on paper it feels, er, yawn-inducing at best.

But the simplicity of the presentation somehow works as it plucks at viewers’ primal fears. The claustrophobic feel of a little tripod-bound camera watching two defenseless people—separated from the evil supernatural happenings around them by only a thin cotton sheet—delivers a very visceral creepiness.

That doesn’t, however, translate to: “Wrangle up the whippersnappers, Ma. We’re goin’ to an old-time skeery flick!” Because in spite of the lack of Saw -style gore, this is still a pretty messy R-rater. We are dealing with demonic stuff here, after all. And the frequently exploding f-bombs are dropped with the careless abandon of a world war.

Would Hitchcock, were he directing now, have laced The Birds with bombastic obscenities like that? I can only hope not.

After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.

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Horror stands as one of cinema's oldest and most ambitious genres, and it has cultivated a passionate fan following off the back of its ability to leave viewers a terrified, trembling mess. One of its most viscerally horrifying subgenres comes in the form of paranormal movies, with films focusing on unnatural beings like ghosts, spirits, and demons which invade our nightmares and pique our superstitions and fears.

With impeccable special effects, agonizingly suspenseful storytelling, and an ingrained sense of terror that forces us to keep watching no matter how much we want to look away, great paranormal horror films have served as one of the genre's defining pillars for decades . From timeless classics from over 50 years ago to modern masterworks that reinvent the terror for new generations, it was much more than mere jump scares that made these films the iconic hits that they are today.

15 'The Others' (2001)

Directed by alejandro amenábar.

A twisty, winding psychological horror, The Others excelled as a subversive haunted house horror movie that coasted on Nicole Kidman ’s compelling central performance. Taking place in 1945, it follows a devoted Catholic who moves to the English coast with her two young children who suffer from a rare photosensitivity disease while waiting for word on her husband in the war. As odd occurrences start to transpire around the house, Grace (Kidman) starts to believe something paranormal could be at work.

With an elegance that isn’t necessarily characteristic of horror, not to mention an intelligent and engrossing screenplay to boot, The Others excelled with its narrative nous alone. However, with The Others also boasting a magnetic, atmospheric chill that can have an immersive effect , it is shocking as it is tight and tidy to be an impressive and underrated horror flick.

Rent on Amazon Prime

14 'Suspiria' (1977)

Directed by dario argento.

One of the greatest horror movies of the 1970s which distinguished itself with a rich sense of style, Suspiria has become a true classic of the genre. It follows Suzy Bannion ( Jessica Harper ), an aspiring ballerina from America who travels to Germany to attend a prestigious dance academy, where her stay becomes plagued as a mysterious and malevolent entity haunts the establishment, sparking an idea that a supernatural conspiracy could be at play.

While the film has some genuinely unnerving scenes, what truly made it stick in the viewers’ minds was its breathtaking visual display, with Dario Argento using color to striking effect , creating a surreal atmosphere of gripping intensity. The end result is a strangely beautiful horror film that excels as an aesthetically entrancing masterpiece with a solid horror story to boot.

Watch on Tubi

13 'Poltergeist' (1982)

Directed by tobe hooper.

Poltergeist made television a thing to be feared. When the youngest of the Freeling family, Carol Anne ( Heather O'Rourke ) begins chatting with the static on the TV, there is something wrong. Eventually, the rest of the house becomes a horror show as well and it is overrun by malevolent ghosts who want to abduct Carol Anne.

Released in 1982, Poltergeist has become a timeless horror classic with its consistently terrifying tone which remains just as scary today as it was the day it was released. In addition to being a terrific paranormal horror film, Poltergeist is also one of the all-time great haunted house movies , one that not only gave viewers nightmares, but left them in a cold sweat when their television sets went to static as well.

Poltergeist

Rent on Apple TV

12 'Smile' (2022)

Directed by parker finn.

The directorial debut of Parker Finn , adapting his 2020 short film Laura Hasn't Slept into a feature-length horror hit, Smile proved to be incredibly effective as an unnerving, creepy demon possession flick. It follows Rose ( Sosie Bacon ), a psychiatrist who believes she is being haunted by a supernatural threat after she witnesses the bizarre and harrowing suicide of one of her patients.

Smile 's use of jump scares, mounting suspense, and eerily off-putting performances offered more than enough horror to keep audiences awake at night for fear of what they would see in their dreams. As a fresh entry into the world of horror cinema, Smile was a landmark box office success, making well over $200 million worldwide, and has a sequel scheduled to be released in October .

Watch on Amazon Prime

11 'Last Night in Soho' (2021)

Directed by edgar wright.

While it isn't classified as a horror film, Edgar Wright 's ghost story draws clear inspiration from the genre while creeping under audiences' skin with much more than just evil spirits. Last Night in Soho follows Eloise ( Thomasin McKenzie ) a clairvoyant girl who moves to London to attend a fashion course at an illustrious arts school where her connection to the area's ugly past threatens to drive her mad as she begins experiencing the life of an aspiring singer who had her room in the 1960s.

While the film's ghoulish, faceless ghosts can certainly garner a fright, it's Last Night in Soho 's thematic focus on misogyny and abuse that made it particularly striking . It also didn't hurt that the film had a spectacular soundtrack of '60s hits , flaunted Wright's trademark dedication to style, and served as a wonderful testament to classic horror which fans could both adore and fear.

Last Night in Soho

10 'talk to me' (2023), directed by danny and michael phillipou.

The modern age of horror cinema has seen a number of stunning instant classics arise, but few have had such immediate success as Talk to Me . Following a group of friends as they conjure spirits with an embalmed hand for thrills, its sudden shift to paranormal terror has entrenched it among the best and most popular horror movies to be made in recent years.

The debut film of Michael and Danny Philippou , it hearkens back to classic horror movies from decades past while being imbued with some new ideas that make it completely of its time. Further enhanced by its aspirational dramatic heft, Talk to Me is a deeply unsettling film capable of rattling even the most hardened horror fans and is destined to become one of the best paranormal horror movies, if not of all time, then of its era at the very least.

Rent on Amazon

9 'Paranormal Activity' (2007)

Directed by oren peli.

An ingenious mix of simple yet suspenseful narrative, low-budget innovation, and the haunting, invasive feeling exuded from its home-camera gimmick, Paranormal Activity is a true masterpiece of found footage horror . As one of the 21st century's earlier horror hits, it focuses on a young couple who move into a new house where a series of strange happenings inspire Micah ( Micah Sloat ) to set up cameras to document what is occurring.

Steadily building the tension as the weird events that occur become increasingly hostile, much of the film's agonizing torment actually stemmed from the lingering moments where nothing was happening. A stressful, heart-stopping horror film, Paranormal Activity remains an acclaimed hit of the genre and one of the most intense and terrifying paranormal horror films of all time.

Paranormal Activity

Watch on Max

8 'The Ring' (2002)

Directed by gore verbinski.

An American adaptation of the 1998 Japanese horror film Ringu , The Ring fast became a horror hit in the early 2000s. It follows Rachel ( Naomi Watts ), a journalist covering the death of four teenage girls who investigates a cursed videotape that kills people seven days after they watch it, and must find answers to save herself after she views it out of curiosity.

Fascinatingly, the film went into production without a finished script, but it found momentum in Gore Verbinski's arresting atmospheric suspense and Watts' outstanding central performance . The Ring tapped into the internet phenomenon of chain mail horror years before it bled into the mainstream consciousness, becoming a superstitious, paranormal hit of urban legend terror and nightmarish visual terror.

7 'Rosemary's Baby' (1968)

Directed by roman polanski.

A true timeless classic of horror cinema which was famous for its terrifying, psychological impact which saw it linger in the mind long after the credits have rolled, Rosemary's Baby mixes demonic horror with family drama to horrifying effect . It focuses on Rosemary Woodhouse ( Mia Farrow ), the wife of a stage actor who moves into an apartment building with her husband where strange occurrences plague her as she falls pregnant, leading her to grow suspicious of her neighbors.

With a violent and overbearing satanism an underlying threat throughout Rosemary's Baby , it gradually builds a sickening dread as the sinister plot of the complex’s tenants unfolds. Powered by Farrow’s phenomenal central performance, Rosemary’s Baby doesn’t just thrive as one of the scariest paranormal movies of all time, but as a great example of female-led cinema as well.

Rosemary's Baby

Watch on Paramount+

6 'The Conjuring' (2013)

Directed by james wan.

Throughout the 2010s, the horror genre had a massive resurgence, with more genre films becoming mainstream hits the longer the decade went on. One of the great, early major success stories for 2010s horror was 2013's The Conjuring which follows a family who move into a haunted house and turn to demonologists Ed ( Patrick Wilson ) and Lorraine Warren ( Vera Farmiga ) to investigate the curse's origin.

A suitably terrifying picture, The Conjuring is a flawless example of haunted house horror and proved to be such a hit with fans that it spawned a successful extended franchise. Further adding to the nightmarish horror of the demonic evil and the visual frights, The Conjuring was reportedly based on true events that the real-life Warrens investigated in the 1970s.

The Conjuring

5 'the babadook' (2014), directed by jennifer kent.

A cult hit of an Australian horror movie that has gradually built up its audience as the years have gone on, The Babadook served as the directorial debut of Jennifer Kent . Following a widowed single mother as her son begins to act strange and speaks of a monster coming to get him, it focuses on an ominous picture book called "Mister Babadook" and the monstrous evil that comes to life from within it.

The film won international praise not only for its horror mastery, but also for its depiction of grief and loss which gave it a heart-wrenching story of family woe as its core. As for its terrifying magnificence though, Kent masterfully manufactured a truly shaking horror film without having to rely on jump scares or copious gore to leave audiences dreading the titular villain long after the movie had finished.

The Babadook

Watch on Hulu

4 'The Blair Witch Project' (1999)

Directed by eduardo sánchez and daniel myrick.

Still standing as the magnum opus of the found-footage subgenre over two decades after its release, The Blair Witch Project remains one of the most viscerally terrifying movies ever made. It follows three film students who seek to make a documentary about the legend of the Blair Witch, and venture into the supposedly haunted woods to find out more about the myth only to find themselves lost and being stalked by a wicked and malevolent force.

The low-budget documentary approach gave The Blair Witch Project a jarring, grounded realism which elevated the horror by only giving audiences a very narrow viewpoint of what was unfolding. It allowed the imagination to run wild with all manner of dreadful thoughts, and also led to a very real sense of motion sickness which made many patrons in theaters physically ill .

The Blair Witch Project

3 'hereditary' (2018), directed by ari aster.

A groundbreaking debut from modern horror maestro Ari Aster , Hereditary became an instant classic with a startling reputation as being one of the greatest and scariest movies ever made . The famed horror flick follows a grieving family mourning the loss of an elderly relative who begins to fear they are being haunted by a demonic entity as they discover more of their disturbing ancestry amid a series of worrying occurrences.

The narrative takes some deeply disturbing turns to build an unbearable sense of dread which serves as an embodiment of nightmarish terror. Hereditary 's commentary on loss, guilt, and family is brilliant, not only in its depth but also in how it works into the horror , further enhancing it as the story unfolds right up until its scarring ending which has undoubtedly led to nightmares for millions of viewers around the world and marked Hereditary as one of the best supernatural horror movies ever made.

2 The Shining (1980)

Directed by stanley kubrick.

As one of the most renowned horror movies of all time, The Shining has endured for decades as a genre-defining masterpiece capable of generating an immense and weighted sense of dread that hangs heavy over the audience. From acclaimed filmmaker Stanley Kubrick , it follows a young family who relocates to the remote Overlook Hotel to serve as the resort’s winter caretakers where the patriarch begins to go mad as the hotel’s violent intent unravels.

With a runtime of 146 minutes, the film utilizes an agonizingly slow pace to draw out every ounce of dread and eerie suspense. It may not be the most immediately terrifying movie, but The Shining does prove to be an exhausting, lingering nightmare that can haunt viewers long after the credits roll .

The Shining

1 'the exorcist' (1973), directed by william friedkin.

When young Regan ( Linda Blair ) becomes possessed by a demon, her family calls for an exorcism to vanquish the evil. As Regan's condition worsens, she wreaks havoc on her household as she battles the demon for power over her very being, all while two Catholic priests work tirelessly to exorcise the demon from her body.

The Exorcist broke barriers for the genre, becoming an instant and lasting phenomenon that incited widespread fanfare and spectacle while also inspiring derision and even legends of a cursed production. Despite all the hysteria surrounding the film though, the one thing about The Exorcist that has endured is its masterful execution of paranormal horror, something that has made the movie the scariest film of all time in the eyes of many who have seen it.

The Exorcist

NEXT: The Most Bizarre and Grotesque Body Horror Movies

32 episodes

A podcast by a horror lover for horror lovers. Sidney, otherwise known as horror_chronicles from TikTok, discusses all things horror. Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/hello-sidney/support

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• JUN 25, 2024

Episode 32: Paranormal Activity Part 1 (1-4)

In this episode, Sidney breaks down the first four movies in the Paranormal Activity franchise and discusses connections as well as some unanswered questions. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/hello-sidney/support

• 2 hr 19 min
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Episode 31: The Haunting of Hill House (2018) Part 4

This week, Sidney finally reaches the gripping conclusion of the greatest show ever made, The Haunting of Hill House, where all our questions are answered and everything comes together. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/hello-sidney/support

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Episode 30: The Haunting of Hill House (2018) Part 3

The Haunting of Hill House breakdown continues this week as Sidney discusses episodes 6, 7 and 8. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/hello-sidney/support

• 1 hr 39 min
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Episode 29: The Haunting of Hill House (2018) Part 2

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• 1 hr 22 min
• MAY 28, 2024

Episode 28: The Haunting of Hill House (2018) Part 1

This week, Sidney starts discussing her favorite show of all time, the masterpiece that is The Haunting of Hill House, and breaks down the first three episodes. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/hello-sidney/support

• 1 hr 44 min
• MAY 21, 2024

Episode 27: Vivarium (2019)

In this episode, Sidney does a full break down of the mind-bending science fiction psychological thriller Vivarium, and discusses the deeper meaning behind the film. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/hello-sidney/support

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During gaming industry expo Summer Game Fest last month, Jason Blum took the stage to unveil the inaugural slate of titles for his Blumhouse Games division , which launched in February 2023.

While the through line for the six indie games was of course horror (we’d expect nothing less from the producers of “Halloween,” “The Purge,” “Paranormal Activity,” “M3GAN” and “Five Nights at Freddy’s” film franchises), the fear factor varied wildly from an adorable farming and town sim with a murder-element to a first-person adventure where folklore mixes with religion in a nightmarish version of Spain.

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“We’ll exist in the horror space. I think the incredible thing about horror is it’s so vast,” Blumhouse Games creative lead Louise Blain told Variety . “There are so many different sub genres, like supernatural. And with Blumhouse shows or movies, they go across the gamut of horror and that’s really what we want to embrace: horror in all of its forms. And that means that what you’re looking at on the slate is twisted and weird games, and then playing a pixelated cozy agriculture game with murder. The scope is very, very large, as long as you’re playing in the giant format that is horror and the unknown, it can feel like jumpscares, it can feel like exploring a dark corner in a haunted home, and can also feel like, why are the farmers dying in this cute town? The thing is, you could actually really enjoy a horror game, you just didn’t know which one you want to play.”

And for this current lineup of initial titles, Blumhouse will not utilize any microtransaction models. “We’re not doing any sort of in-game monetization at all,” Blumhouse Games president Zach Wood said. “We’re starting with single-player experiences small in scope with premium pricing. But because of the scope of the game it will be in the $10 to $30 price points, roughly.”

Of course, the games could become bigger in the future, and Wood says Blumhouse is interested in, at some point, capitalizing on its own IP and creating games based on its successful film and TV horror franchises.

“We’re interested in the fresh ideas in horror,” Wood said. “And that doesn’t mean that we won’t be making games based on existing Blumhouse IP in the future — we certainly would like to. But a lot of that is just the right timing. It’s the right idea, it’s the right creative team. And those things need to align the right way, because it’s meaningful for us that we do right by the IP and really make great games the fans expect. It’s a lot of work, so we want to be very careful about that.”

See Blumhouse Games’ initial slate of video games below.

• Developer: Cozy Game Pals
• Based in: Los Angeles, Calif.
• A creepy love letter to classic 90s teen horror stories,  Fear the Spotlight  is designed for a modern audience. Sneak into a school after hours with Vivian and Amy, survive a seance gone wrong, solve tactile puzzles and uncover the disturbing mystery behind a school tragedy decades before. And whatever you do, stay out of the spotlight.  Fear the Spotlight  will be launching later this year, and fans can wishlist the game here.  
• Developer: EYES OUT
• From Cory Davis ( Spec Ops: The Line ) and Robin Finck ( Nine Inch Nails ) comes a first-person psychedelic horror set in the far future. In the last known city on Earth, people are disappearing in their sleep. Those who remain exist in a crisis of reckless experiments to keep awake. Katja must navigate depraved death cults, otherworldly forces, and the ever-present horror of The HUSH, to save herself and those who rely upon her.
• Developer: Vermila Studios
• Based in: Madrid, Spain
• Dive into a unique first-person horror adventure where folklore and religion intertwine in a nightmarish version of Spain. Players will navigate a world steeped in eerie legends and sacred rituals, facing terrifying statues of saints that come to life. In a desperate fight for survival, the player must sacrifice their own blood to use as ammunition against the horrors that lurk around every corner.
• Developer: Playmestudio 
• Based in: Santiago, Chile
• A never-before-seen horror game is the only evidence found at a crime scene. As a retired game designer hired to investigate the case, you find a hidden mode that plunges you into a rabbit hole of the unknown. As more obscure games are uncovered, cross the fourth wall of their worlds and delve deep into terrifying truths that transcend their own reality…
• Developer: Perfect Garbage
• Based in: Chicago, Ill.
• A charming pixelated farming and town simulation game where, amidst all the relationship building and crop harvesting, players must figure out which of the townsfolk is a supernatural serial killer. Uncover the hidden secrets of Ashenridge, find a way to stay one step ahead of the murderer… and maybe save the next victim.
• Developer: Half Mermaid Productions
• Based in: New York City, N.Y.
• An ambitious game from the minds of Sam Barlow (Her Story, IMMORTALITY) and Brandon Cronenberg (Possessor, Infinity Pool). Prepare to have your mind broken by Half Mermaid’s most twisted vision yet. 

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The full timeline of the paranormal activity movies explained.

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Why Paranormal Activity Kickstarted The Found Footage Craze

Paranormal activity 7: biggest unanswered questions, how paranormal activity became the most profitable horror movie ever made.

• The Paranormal Activity franchise features a complicated timeline that includes sequels, prequels, and parallel installments, making it difficult to follow the exact order of events.
• The 2021 film, Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin , serves as a soft reboot and introduces a new demonic entity named Asmodeus, while the upcoming film, The Other Side , returns to the core story and continues from where Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension left off.
• The films are not released in chronological order, but instead jump between different years and decades, adding to the complexity of the timeline.

Oren Peli’s supernatural found-footage horror film Paranormal Activity spawned a franchise that included seven movies, so the Paranormal Activity timeline needs some explaining. The films follow the history of two sisters named Katie and Kristi who are tormented by a demonic entity, "Toby." As the franchise expanded with sequels, prequels, and parallel installments, the exact timeline of events remains complicated. The franchise shares a basic premise: supernatural occurrences that are caught "found-footage" — such as security systems, webcams, and more.

The 2021 installment Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin was a soft reboot since it is the first installment in the franchise to feature a new demonic entity: Asmodeus , based on the real-life Abrahamic dogma. The next title in the franchise, The Other Side , returned to Paranormal Activity 's core story, centering on "Toby" once again and continuing the story from where Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension left off. The installments aren't released chronologically, however, but instead, jump between different years and decades.

Paranormal Activity Movies In Order: How (& Where) To Watch By Release Date & Chronologically

There's more than one way to watch the Paranormal Activity franchise, with its complex timeline of prequels, time travel, and a standalone sequel.

Paranormal Activity 3

September 1988.

The prequel to the Paranormal Activity franchise, Paranormal Activity 3, dives deeper into the history of the demonic entity following the main characters of Kristi and Katie. It is set in September 1988, nearly twenty years prior to the first two films. At the time, the two sisters are living with their mother, Julie, and her boyfriend, Dennis. Kristi begins to see an imaginary friend named “Toby” (sometimes spelled "Tobi") who is actually the demon that will plague the family for years to come.

Dennis discovers a symbol that belonged to a coven of witches that brainwashes young women of child-bearing age into having sons and promising them to a dark entity. This bit of information explains the disappearance of Kristi’s son in Paranormal Activity 2. The ending of Paranormal Activity 3 culminates in the family seeking refuge at Julie’s mother’s house — only to find that she is a member of a coven of witches and is responsible for all the evil that the family experienced in September 1988.

Every Paranormal Activity Movie Ranked Worst To Best (Including Next of Kin)

Paranormal Activity began a found-footage horror franchise that now has seven films; we rank every movie in the series from worst to best.

Paranormal Activity 2

August 2006.

So, when does Paranormal Activity 2 take place? Initially, it appears to be a sequel to the original — until the twist ending reveals it takes place a few months before the events of the first, eventually merging together (which is also why the timeline can be a little confusing). Conversations about Katie and Micah’s experiences with a supernatural presence happen throughout the second film. Furthermore, when Katie disappears at the end of Paranormal Activity — being controlled by the demon entity Toby — the sequel reveals that she went to her sister Kristi’s house to take her son, Hunter.

Prior to these events, Kristi and her family are introduced shortly after she delivers Hunter, their firstborn son. Shortly after his birth, paranormal occurrences begin to plague their home to the point where family members are physically attacked. Ultimately, Katie takes Hunter, and she murders the majority of the family while seemingly possessed.

• Paranormal Activity

October 2006

The first installment in the Paranormal Activity franchise is set in October 2006. It follows Katie and Micah, a young couple who have recently moved into a new home together. As the film progresses, the supernatural occurrences around the home grow increasingly stronger to the point where Katie becomes possessed. The original Paranormal Activity ends with her throwing Micah into the camera and supposedly disappearing. While there are other alternative endings, they are not canonical to the franchise. Therefore, this timeline follows the original theatrical ending of Micah dying and Katie disappearing.

Paranormal Activity kicked off a trend of found footage horror movies when it hit theaters, and there are a few factors to how it pulled that off.

Paranormal Activity: Tokyo Night

The 2010 spin-off Paranormal Activity: Tokyo Night didn't receive an international release until 2022, although many hardcore Paranormal Activity fans managed to find ways to view it. Despite only releasing in Japan, Tokyo Night is the official Paranormal Activity 2 in that territory and is considered canon. AMC included it in the bundle with the English Paranormal Activity titles for streaming platforms, which proves the studio considers officially part of the franchise.

However, it is also still a spin-off and takes place outside the continuity of the main movies. It's thematically linked in that it's a found footage Paranormal Activity movie and occurs within the same universe. It does not, however, feature the demon Toby or any of the events or characters from the other Paranormal Activity movies.

Paranormal Activity: Tokyo Night is set in 2010, just after the events of the first Paranormal Activity. It should be watched between Paranormal Activity and Paranormal Activity 4. While it doesn't add to the main narrative of the franchise, it doesn't detract from anything either. When included chronologically in the Paranormal Activity viewing order, it does a fantastic job of fleshing out the wider supernatural universe that movies like The Ghost Dimension and The Marked Ones exist in, adding a new layer of immersion.

Paranormal Activity 4

November 2011.

The fourth installment in the Paranormal Activity franchise seems to be a bit out of place and somewhat unimportant to the storyline , and is set in November 2011. It reveals that Katie from the first Paranormal Activity has moved to the suburbs and lives across the street from the Nelson family, who is now plagued by the spirit named “Toby” that only the youngest member, Wyatt, can see. Katie has also acquired a child to pose as her son named Robbie who becomes friends with Wyatt.

It is revealed in the fourth Paranormal Activity movie that Wyatt and Robbie were both adopted, and that Wyatt’s real name is actually Hunter. At some point between the second film and Paranormal Activity 4 , Katie lost Hunter and is now trying to get him back in order to sacrifice him to the demons she and her coven worship. Before the audience finds out what happens to the Nelson family, Hunter/Wyatt, and Katie, the screen cuts to black. Paranormal Activity 4 still leaves holes in the timeline of the franchise that could be resolved in the upcoming installment.

Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin left a lot to the imagination. What are some of the biggest unanswered questions? Here's what you should know.

Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones

Departing from the premise of the first four movies in the Paranormal Activity series , Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones follows a Latino community in California dealing with the aftermath of eighteen-year-old Jesse Arista receiving the mark of a demonic cult. The Marked Ones is set after the events of the previous Paranormal Activity movies , starting when Jesse discovers a witch’s altar in his home and sees the apparitions of a young Kristi and Katie.

However, The Marked Ones introduces a new concept in the franchise: time travel. When a possessed Jesse forces his friend Hector Estrella through a marked door, the latter finds himself in the setting of the first film, Katie and Micah’s home. Hector takes on a role in the original Paranormal Activity ending. Thus, the fifth installment loops back to the first, while also adding the larger threat of the Midwives.

Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension

What was thought to be the finale in the Paranormal Activity franchise , The Ghost Dimension was released in 2015 but is set in 2013. It follows the Fleeges family who have relocated to a new home in California. Shortly after moving in, they discover videotapes of Katie and Kristi being initiated into the coven of witches called Midwives twenty-five years prior.

The family discovers that the home they are living in was built on top of Kristi and Katie’s home that burned down in 1992; adult Katie sold them the new house that was built on the land. Like in The Marked Ones, there is time travel in Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension , with the climax transporting characters back in time to a pivotal moment for Kristi, Katie, and Toby.

Few movies have rivaled the unprecedented profitability of Paranormal Activity, a massive hit due to its simple premise and even simpler execution.

Paranormal Activity: Next Of Kin

Paranormal activity: next of kin.

Jumping ahead to March 2021, Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin was the next movie in the Paranormal Activity timeline. There is no time travel in this entry — just the culture clash of Margot, Chris, and Dale staying with an Amish community while Margot investigates her roots. The movie features a new antagonist, Asmodeus, who could be connected to Toby and the Midwives. However, at this point, it appears Next of Kin is a parallel story of possession in the Paranormal Activity franchise.

Paranormal Activity’s timeline is a long and confusing one with many twists and turns that transform it from a linear progression to a time-traveling, portal-jumping, interdimensional adventure through the paranormal. While the franchise has introduced various alternate endings, with the introduction of more installments, they become defunct and non-canonical. While Paranormal Activity has used its sequels, prequels, and parallel films to fill holes in the timeline, some of these holes still exist. With an eighth potentially in the works, Paranormal Activity: The Other Side could either complicate the timeline even more or give a sound resolution to the entire franchise.

What's The Future Of The Paranormal Activity Franchise?

There may be no more paranormal activity movies.

The Paranormal Activity timeline might be coming to an end. It seems like the evil from the demonic Tobi might finally have ended with Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin . This comes straight from Jason Blum, who wants the Paranormal Activity series to end with this movie. Blum is the mastermind behind Blumhouse and the entire Paranormal Activity franchise. If he wants it to end, there is a good chance that the end of the road has finally arrived. On top of that, Paranormal Activity director, writer, and producer, Christopher Landon won't be involved .

"I had no intention of even really being involved because I was like, oh, I’m done with that franchise, I really don’t want to do it. And then I had this weirdo idea about a fake Amish community and we ended up making the movie. I mean, it’s a franchise. They’re always going to make another one. I don’t see how they don’t, I just don’t know what they’re planning, and I highly doubt I’ll be involved anymore."

With Jason Blum no longer interested in making any more Paranormal Activity movies, would the studio keep milking the franchise with a new creative team? The original movie was a massive financial success, but the sequels and prequels have dealt with the law of finishing returns. Despite that, Paranormal Activity: The Other Side still made $90.9 million on a $5 million budget, a good reason to continue on. However, without Landon and Blum, it might end up coming as a reboot, which means the Paranormal Activity timeline might reset, and another new demon might appear if the movies continue.

Nocturnal Visitors

Description

One ordinary November night, Jamie witnesses a paranormal event. Shortly afterwards, he is transported to Aliorbis, a mysterious alternate version of Earth where magic and science coexist in almost perfect harmony. It’s the place where all the legends that we know of are born. There, Jamie learns that he is what is known as a “Visitor”, someone who can cross the barrier that separates his world and Aliorbis. He quickly becomes part of SEEK, an organization that investigates crimes that are a threat to both worlds. Through his adventures with SEEK, Jamie slowly becomes acquainted with its dark and twisted past filled with corruption and chaos. He gradually starts to wonder if he is truly on the right side of this story. Play as Jamie and other characters with unique personalities and backgrounds, explore otherworldly scenarios full of detail, solve puzzles, and investigate gory crime scenes. Features: * Play as Jamie and five other characters with unique personalities, backgrounds and points of view. * Explore multiple otherworldly scenarios full of details. * Investigate gory crime scenes and look for clues. * Experience an immersive story with a carefully crafted lore. * Crack the case!

Published by

Developed by, release date, playable on.

• Xbox Series X|S

Capabilities

• 4K Ultra HD
• Single player
• Optimized for Xbox Series X|S
• Smart Delivery
• Xbox achievements
• Xbox presence
• Xbox cloud saves