A very clever move on the part of the producers was to shift the story to a neighborhood where there are Latin people, instead of a white suburban family. We follow the story of Jesse, his best friend, Jesse’s girlfriend and Jesse’s grandmother, who all live on the first floor apartment. Strange noises emanate from the apartment below them, and like in all horror movies, the boys actually go ahead and explore the apartment, which proves fatal for Jesse, as he becomes the “marked one!”
What follows is Jesse’s slow transformation into an evil demonic force. He starts communicating with the spirits (in one of my favorite part of the movie!) The communication takes place on the Simon game pad- Green button for yes, Red button for no! He develops unusual strength as he wards off thieves. He realizes that he cannot fall to the ground without some invisible force holding him in mid air. What seems fun initially soon becomes tiresome for Jesse. The girlfriend and the best friend find out that Jesse has been marked for being possessed by the coven of witches (every first male born son is marked!)
Because the basic story line followed all the movies that preceded this one, it did become predictable in some ways, and I sort of knew how it will end. However, it was still a good watch, with a few genuine scares (dog being stuck to the ceiling for one, the supermarket freak out etc).
In any horror movies, the ending is most crucial and that can either make you hate or love the movie. In this case, I was satisfied with the end as the element of time travel through dimension was explored and our protagonist ended up in the house of Katie and Micah from the first movie. So it was a neat way to connect the two movies.
Whethere you love or hate it, you can’t deny the success of PA movies as they continue to go straight to #1 at the box office and makes lots of money!
3/5
Mansour Ahsan 