Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin

Directed by William Eubank, Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin follows Margot (Emily Bader) as she and a small film crew arrive at a remote Amish farmhouse to dig into her birth mother’s mysterious past – with horror inevitably ensuing after it becomes clear that the inhabitants of said Amish farmhouse aren’t quite as docile as they seem. Filmmaker Eubank, working from Christopher Landon’s screenplay, kicks Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin off with a deliberately-paced opening stretch that effectively establishes the central characters and the isolated atmosphere in which they find themselves, and it’s clear, certainly, that the movie’s watchable vibe is due in no small part to the underlying atmosphere of tension and the personable efforts of a uniformly affable cast. (It doesn’t hurt, either, that the movie’s first half is peppered with a handful of admittedly creepy and suspenseful set-pieces.) And although Eubank certainly pushes the meandering, slow-moving aesthetic virtually to its breaking point, with the movie containing perhaps just a few too many sequences of characters investigating and exploring their environs, Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin progresses into an increasingly over-the-top second half and climactic stretch that does, at the very least, ensure that the picture concludes on an entertaining, gleefully ludicrous note. The final result is a passable endeavor that succeeds, albeit mildly, in spite of its absence of elements specific to the previous entries within this hit-and-miss franchise (ie this never, for the most part, feels like a Paranormal Activity movie), which is a shame, ultimately, given that the series had established and built up an ongoing narrative that hadn’t yet received a proper resolution.

**1/2 out of ****