While the
Paranormal Activity franchise has yet to reach the point where it is something more scoffed at than taken with anticipation it somehow doesn't feel like that point is too far away. This October will mark five years since the first time we met Katie and Micah and all the strange, demonic events that started happening to them and while each subsequent film that has pushed the limitations of people filming every important piece of their lives to the brink of implausibility, there is something to be said for the scope of what has developed here with having such humble beginnings. While the fifth film in the series was meant to be released this past fall it was instead pushed back to 2014 and so now, as these films bookend the year for us we are sure to feel both caught up and virtually still in the cold as to what is actually going on with this coven of witches that Katie and her sister Kristi became entangled in at a very young age (as the third film tells us). While each film has given us another piece to the bigger picture what comes to be more obvious with this off-shoot of the series is that they need to begin giving the audience more otherwise people are going to stop putting in their time and money to see these micro-budgeted movies that are dispersed consistently, but feature very little progression in narrative development. What makes
The Marked Ones a worthwhile trip to the movies is that it delivers both more scares and more actual background information than any of the previous installments. The new characters introduced here serve as more of an explanation as to "how" everything that has been hinted at in the main canon films has developed as opposed to "why" this all seemingly began with Katie and Kristi and why it has all spiraled out of control since then. I generally like the
Paranormal franchise despite the fact I'm never excited to actually sit down and watch one, but once I do I'm usually sucked into the intriguing if not normal people subject to the scares and moreover how this piece will fit into the overarching story that is being told. It would seem obvious from the marketing that
The Marked Ones is not essential viewing, but if you're a fan of the series it at least opens many more doors to be explored and is worth catching if you intend on seeing numero cinco this Halloween.
