Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones (2014) Review

"I feel like I'm losing time."

-Jesse Arista

The 5th film in the Paranormal Activity series follows teenagers Jesse Arista (Andrews Jacobs) and Hector Estrella (Jorge Diaz).  When Jesse's downstairs neighbor is mysterious murdered, Jesse and Hector start filming the strange events happening around them.  It's fun at first, but after a strange mark appears  Jesse and he starts to change, things start to become less fun and more terrifying.


What Works:

One thing I like about The Marked Ones are the main characters.  Jesse and Hector are not the most likable characters ever, but they feel very real and natural.  They are teenage boys and best friends that cause a bit of mischief.  I totally buy it.  Hector in particular has a really great character arc and becomes very likable over the course of the film.  He's scared and worried for his best friend and actor Jorge Diaz does a great job.

Everything involving Oscar Lopez (Carlos Pratts) makes my skin crawl and the best scares in the movie involve him.  Oscar shows us what Jesse's fate will be and while that's scary enough, we also get some really solid jump scares with him.  Oscar jumping onto the dumpster, him grabbing Penelope (Catherine Toribio), and his eventual suicide.  It's some great stuff and really memorable.

I absolutely love that Hector and Marisol (Gabrielle Walsh) recruit a couple of gangbangers for their mission to rescue Jesse.  We get an awesome hard cut to them arriving at the house Jesse is at and pulling out guns.  It's absolutely hilarious and a great way to kick off the 3rd act.

I like the tie-ins to the previous movie.  We get some more information about the witch coven and what has actually been going on the entire seres.  The 3rd act returns to Lois' (Hallie Foote) house from the end of the 3rd movie, which is a nice touch.  The return of Ali Rey (Molly Ephraim) is also fun.

Finally, the 3rd act was an absolute blast.  We get Arturo (Richard Cabral) shooting witches, a great death for Marisol, some creepy moments, and a bonkers end.  I have some issues with it, which I'll get to, but the fact that they introduce time travel is a bold move and I'm totally on board for it.


What Sucks:

I will say Hector and Jesse make some incredibly stupid decisions throughout the film.  Going into Ana's (Gloria Sandoval) apartment is so stupid that it's irritating.  I wish the writers had come up with a better reason for them going in there.

One thing I like about these movies are the slow subtle scares and we don't get any of those in this movie.  Someone is always holding the camera this time around and they don't leave it running overnight.  It makes sense within the context of the movie, but it would have been nice to have some of those scares.

Finally, I don't love that we get to see what actually happened on the night of Micah's (Micah Sloat) murder.  I always loved that his death was left to our imagination.  As much as I love that Hector ended up in their house, I don't like seeing Micah's death.  We could have done this without seeing what happened to him.  I would have much rather just heard his screams.  It's scarier that way.


Verdict:

The Marked Ones is the best movie in this series since the original.  Jesse and Hector are solid characters, there are some great scares, and the 3rd act is a wild ride.  I wish there had been smarter decisions made, some slower moments, and that we hadn't seen Micah's death, but this movie has definitely got it going on.

 7/10: Good