Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones

***

Not bad fifth film in the Paranormal Activity series is a marked improvement over the previous installment. Moving the series to a Latino street setting is refreshing and allows us to spend time with a different set of characters, this time taking us away from affluent suburbia, transplanting us into a tough, working class neighborhood in Oxnard, California. I think the one mistake this film makes is at the end when it decides to tie into the very first PA film in a way that feels rather forced (it is almost like the filmmakers felt obligated to fit this film into the canon, instead of just allowing The Marked Ones to be its own animal).

 

After graduating high school, an 18 year old kid named Jesse starts to gradually deteriorate after discovering a bite on his arm. The same bite was on the arm of the high school valedictorian, Oscar, noticed at the home of a weird neighbor of Jesse’s named Ana. Ana, soon learned, is a “bruja”, a practitioner of witchcraft (they learn this when they enter her abandoned home after her murder at the hands of Oscar (Carlos Pratts) and find a number of items and drawings (including a fascinating notebook which has a number of demonic writings, art designs, and incantations) that indicate a lifestyle absorbed by the dark arts) and perhaps responsible for what soon happens to Jesse. Photos of Jesse (including as a baby and featuring the deceased mother (died during her giving birth to Jesse)  while pregnant with him) are found in a basement under a floor door you pull up to get inside. Oscar hides there before revealing himself, with dark eyes and a deeply troubled soul…throwing himself out of a window and into a car seems to be a suicidal alternative to what ailed him! Jesse’s high school pals, Hector and Marisol, try to understand what is starting to damage their beloved friend, falling victim eventually to what is unraveling and taking control of him.

 

This is all recorded through the lens of a camera Jesse picked up in a pawn shop, with him and Hector shooting the activities of the paranormal plot mostly. Brief glimpses at street and gang life are exposed (Hector and Jesse are accosted by a pair of thugs in a basketball park, with the demonic evil surfacing in Jesse’s person hurling both of them into the air, incapacitating them; a few Latino gangster types get angry at Hector shooting their direction during what might have been a criminal activity; Hector and Jesse go to a party thrown in a seedier side of the city, flirting with some girls, getting them to come back with them to make out in Ana’s empty apartment) and the film spends a lot of time with Jesse at his home with a grandmother who speaks mostly in her native language (and is a sweetheart) and friends often over to hang out with him. The three are quite likable and harmless, unlike the neighborhood they live, but the camera doesn’t always eye gang life. When the criminal element isn’t around, the trio investigate Ana’s former abode, her witchcraft, and study the writings which could be a catalyst in the dangers they encounter. But as the film continues, it is obvious what happens to Jesse was prepared 18 years in the making.

The film is a slow burn, so if this approach bores you, avoid like the plague. But it has its rewards for paranormal effects fans. Like Jesse’s levitation in the living room as a type of vortex emerges when he had vanished, Hector capturing it on camera. The torment of a pet dog, held against the ceiling by a rather amused (and quite far gone) Jesse. The aforementioned thugs being lifted off their feet on the basketball park and thrown is a doozy. Jesse showing Hector all the tricks he has discovered (like being held by this invisible force from falling and being able to blow up an inflatable without much breath at all) provides an innocent child’s play prior to the dark path The Marked Ones soon takes when Oscar appears, totally robbed of his future by the pervasive, demonic force eclipsing him. Soon Marisol and Hector find themselves at the house of the Coven, accompanied by two Latino gangster types (one the brother of Oscar), hoping to locate and rescue Jesse. I think most viewers know this was a bad idea.

Andrew Jacobs (Jesse), Jorge Diaz (Hector Estrella), and Gabrielle Walsh (Marisol), thankfully, are well cast and don’t wear out their welcome. Jesse’s downturn in a market, a rage exploding towards the owner and Marisol’s potential boyfriend; this allows us to see an uncharacteristic loss of control which indicates the rest of the film will grow increasingly intense. Grandma Irma’s (Renee Victor) fate with a smirking Jesse, a body at the end of the concrete steps near Jesse’s home, is a really unsettling moment. Michael Landon’s son, Christopher directs with a sure hand and the confidence in handling a sequel in a popular franchise is right there. Good energy in the way the film is made shows. The way Landon has the camera (primarily in Hector's hands) moving quickly from room to room really keeps us on edge because we're waiting on the moment of the "strike", when the evil decides to drive right at us. But even when the kids are goofing off (like food purchased on the street that scorches Hector's taste buds, a firecracker's sudden pop, and a Jackass style trip down steps in a plastic clothes container), the film is watchable.

I think, in a sense, The Marked Ones will be possibly viewed as the black sheep of the franchise due to how R-rated it feels next to the previous films. Loaded with language and urban instead of suburban, I think this could actually be considered by many (including me) as a more compelling addition to the franchise. A shot in the arm. I think it could have even been stand alone and worked, but I get the desire to "keep it in house" so to speak. The Coven has tentacles and is one.