Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin (2021)

Last we saw the Paranormal Activity franchise as part of Paranormal Octoberty, Toby/Tobi was granted a physical body and I guess the apocalypse happened, or something. Not very easy to continue that story, so 6 years later we have a reboot! Or an attempt at an anthology that’s somewhat related to the previous films while not actually continuing the story? How very Halloween III: Season of the Witch of you, and I don’t mean that as a compliment. Was it worth it? I mean… not especially, but was it better than Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension? Read on to find out!

The story follows Margot (Ms. Emily Bader) as she meets an Amish relative, Samuel ([Jaye] Ayres-Brown), the first family she’s met since her mom abandoned her as a baby. Wanting to find out where she comes from, she takes her friend, Chris (Roland Buck III), and a random guy they meet named Dale (Dan Lippert) and travel to… uh… Sorry, they’re all wearing masks in public and Dale mentions that he’s had COVID, like, five times. I seem to be having something akin to a traumatic flashback. Gimme a minute.

…

So anyway they travel to Amish country and meet the leader, Jacob (Tom Nowicki), who is a discount Clancy Brown. Some real lackluster supernatural goings-on later and we find out that they’re not Amish, but pseudo-devil worshippers. See, they believe Asmodeus is out to get them, so they trap the overlord of the Nine Hells in a woman’s body, specifically all part of the same bloodline; Margot’s mom is the current vessel for the demon. But shit like a two-headed kid–the goat kind–indicate that it’s time to pass the demon on, which is why they sent Samuel out to find Margot. Dale dies and so does my spirit as he was the best character, but Margot and Chris manage to kill the demon/mom. The cult breaks out into insane violence, but they escape. The movie ends with cops showing up, and possessed Samuel uses their demonic mind powers to make the cops kill themselves. Doesn’t the plot of the movie suggest that Asmodeus won’t be contained in Samuel’s body? Or was this actually foreshadowing the actor transitioning in real life? You decide, but I’m going with the queerer option.

Also, the Paranormal Activity wiki–because of course there’s one–says this movie definitively says that Toby/Tobi is identified as Asmodeus, but I didn’t see that. Maybe it was on screen when Chris and Dale look up the demon, but I didn’t care enough to pause the movie to read the small text, so I’m not convinced.

So this was… fine. A little slow, but better than the latter half of Paranormal Activity movies. It does feel weird not to deal with the Midwives and Katie, but honestly I think that thread was a lost cause after Paranormal Activity 3. Next of Kin is also one of those found footage movies that just has shots that don’t correlate to any camera the characters have, but, like… this is Paranormal Activity 7, I didn’t come into this with high hopes. It didn’t completely suck. Mission accomplished!