Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones (2014)

Previously on Chwineka Watches:

…[Katie] wanders downstairs before shrieking and calling out for her boyfriend. What spooked her so much? It’s not explained here, so for all we know it could be a time traveling Hispanic kid.

People who have been following Paranormal Octoberty may have seen me mention the idea of time traveling witches while talking about the Paranormal Activity franchise. What a weird thing to bring up in a series about demons attacking families and possessing people, right? Well, as it turns out, there are time traveling witches in Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones, which is either the fifth main film or the first spin-off, depending on how you keep track of it. Maybe both? Let’s go with both. Both is good. This movie, however, is not as good.

Taking place in 2012, this movie follows a trio of friends: Jesse (Mr. Andrew Jacobs), Hector (Mr. Jorge Diaz), and Marisol (Ms. Gabrielle Walsh). Jesse has a weird neighbor he thinks is a brujah (witch) who gets murdered by his class’ valedictorian, which seems unlike him. Shortly after Jesse wakes up with a bite mark on his arm and starts showing supernatural powers that really feel more like random superhero abilities. But with great powers comes great darkness, or whatever, as it becomes clear a malevolent entity wants Jesse and… communicates with them through the Simon handheld game (trademark Hasbro, owner of Dungeons & Dragons and Ouija). They coordinate with Ali Rey–hey, I remember her from Paranormal Activity 2!–who gives us the new lore dump on the cult: they’re called the Midwives and are creating an army of possessed boys who they marked in-utero… somehow. The demonic possession starts at age 18 because the digits of 666 add up to that number. Yes, that’s really brought up in the film. Turns out the valedictorian was also one of the marked ones and kills himself before the possession can finalize. But Jesse isn’t so lucky, as things get worse after a failed… exorcism? I’m gonna count that as one. Teaming up with the valedictorian’s gangster brother, Hector and Marisol break into the cult’s base. Hey, it’s Grandma Lois’ house from Paranormal Activity 3! Marisol dies and a fully evil Jesse chases Hector through a door which… sigh. The door takes Hector back in time to the final night of Paranormal Activity where Katie stabs Micah to death in their kitchen. Hector is killed by Jesse and a cult member picks up the camera, the end.

So… that was weird and kind of dumb. Once again we have a movie that could’ve been a decent stand-alone film but has to connect to the previous movies in increasingly bizarre ways. Time traveling witches, man! And to what end? I already thought the cult had achieved their goals after reacquiring Hunter in Paranormal Activity 4, but now you’re telling me they have a collection of boys from around the globe that are all possessed? Sure seems like they can do whatever they want with all that. And what makes Hunter so goddamned important? Like, if you can mark babies in the womb and they just sort of automatically become possessed when they grow up, why go to all this work for Hunter? And even that rush to grab him now that he’s six (or seven given the timeline of this film) seems bizarre when you remember that Katie gave him up for adoption and just… waited several years. I truly don’t remember as of writing this if The Ghost Dimension ties any of these loose threads together, but I’m prepared to be disappointed.

Also, throwing time travel to recontextualize the ending of the first movie is so incredibly stupid. As detailed at the end of Paranormal Activity, a possessed Katie exits the bedroom, screams Micah’s name, he runs downstairs to find her, and is killed. Why did she scream? Was it because she was possessed by a demon and it was a trick to lure Micah to his doom? Yes. It was. We’ve known this the whole time. But now we also know that it was because a time traveling Hispanic kid with a GoPro was in her kitchen. Does that really add anything to the first movie? It’s just… unnecessary and bizarre. Oh, Heather from The Blair Witch Project was actually tackled by the Cat in the Hat (Mike Myers version, of course). Oh, Dani from Midsommar was smiling at the end because a rapping dog started breakdancing in front of her. Can you, beyond a shadow of a doubt, prove that’s not what happened? It’s dumb and I hate it.