The found footage gimmick, for some reason, still doesn't irk me as much as it should. Yeah, it means awful-looking movies with a shaky, grainy look, trite dialogues, lousy character development, little rewatch value. Still, it can work: it did in Cloverfield, REC and, to a certain extent, even the first Paranormal Activity.
Sadly, PA2 is just not scary. A long build-up of tension is fine, but there is a fine line between slow pacing and repetitive padding, and the movie tip-toes over it. The premise of the demon-haunted house, with the inhabitants' growing realization of the danger, is not used to its full potential. After ANOTHER scene of nocturnal footage with the dog barking at an invisible intruder, I grew bored. Guess what? We came to see the monster. I appreciate you don't want to show it right away but, if I had wanted to see a dog howling all night long, I could have watched my neighbours'.
At least with the first movie one didn't know what to expect, so it was moderately unsettling; here, the repetitive structure grows obvious and tiresome. Hint: found footage is not an excuse to have a lazy screenplay; the genre actually requires a particularly strong, well-balanced script, or it becomes a recipe for cinematic boredom.
4/10
Sadly, PA2 is just not scary. A long build-up of tension is fine, but there is a fine line between slow pacing and repetitive padding, and the movie tip-toes over it. The premise of the demon-haunted house, with the inhabitants' growing realization of the danger, is not used to its full potential. After ANOTHER scene of nocturnal footage with the dog barking at an invisible intruder, I grew bored. Guess what? We came to see the monster. I appreciate you don't want to show it right away but, if I had wanted to see a dog howling all night long, I could have watched my neighbours'.
At least with the first movie one didn't know what to expect, so it was moderately unsettling; here, the repetitive structure grows obvious and tiresome. Hint: found footage is not an excuse to have a lazy screenplay; the genre actually requires a particularly strong, well-balanced script, or it becomes a recipe for cinematic boredom.
4/10