Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin Movie Review

Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin and the return of the found footage genre!

The found-footage horror sub-genre has become a staple for many horror fans. The ‘Paranormal Activity’ franchise has easily become one of the biggest entries and synonymous with the sub-genre, often being the first film brought up when discussing found-footage horror. The franchise spawned in 2007, after a massively successful viral marketing campaign, which saw a handful of test screenings garner positive word of mouth from audiences, with trailers showing a handful of jump scares and audiences reacting to these scares in cinemas across North America. A website then appeared after this trailer, asking audiences to go on and demand the film so it would appear in a cinema near you. This campaign was massively successful, as Paranormal Activity received a national release and grossed an impressive $193 million at the worldwide box office, off a $15, 000 budget, making it one of the highest grossing films of all time.

The franchise received four sequels and a spin-off Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones, grossing more than $890 million worldwide, which is just insane when you take into account how cheap each of the films were to make, and makes this franchise one of the highest grossing horror franchises of all time. However, the fifth instalment ‘Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension’ became the lowest grossing entry in the franchise, showing audience fatigue with the formula, and forcing the franchise to go back to the drawing board and enter a hiatus for more than 6 years. However, in 2021 we finally got a new entry in the franchise, a streaming exclusive for Paramount Plus. The latest entry titles ‘Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin’ saw series veteran, Christopher Landon (Paranormal Activity 4, Freaky, Happy Death Day) return to help pen the story with director William Eubank taking the helm as director (Underwater, The Signal). The film acts as a spin off of the original films, following a young woman, who was abandoned by her mother as a baby, who travels to a remote Armish community with a film crew, seeking answers about her mother and her family, where all might not be as it seems.

As a massive fan of the Paranormal Activity franchise, I was really excited to re-visit the found-footage style of filmmaking. For a while there, we were flooded with a bunch of films in the genre, with dozens of films releasing in the 2010s, including genre hits, As Above, So Below, Troll Hunter, Blair Witch, End of Watch, Chronicle, Grave Encounters, The V/H/S films, Unfriended, Area 51, Phoenix Forgotten, Searching, and many, many more. Next of Kin’s new approach to the franchise, was a welcomed return to form, after years of middling entries in the genre. It felt fresh and innovative, with new camera techniques incorporated, to ensure the film never feels repetitive. Whilst the general set-up remains familiar, the overall presentation was exciting.

With Eubank at the helm, the film has a very distinct visual style. After helming the claustrophobic monster flick ‘Underwater’ released in 2020, Eubank understands what works visually and how to utilise a location to its full potential. The cold, and isolated setting of the closed off Amish community, is an inspired one, as we have seen very few horror films (in the mainstream at least), set here. It creates an isolated, cold, and dreaded environment that makes our characters seem helpless, especially when the scares amp up in the film's third act. The third act is legitimately shocking and doesn’t follow the traditional Paranormal Activity formula. 3, 4 and the Ghost Dimension all had a very distinct ending, where our characters are confronted with a cult of sorts, and the camera fades to black. Here, we do have a third act that is tense and scary, but does not follow this pattern. I won’t spoil anything, but it was a pleasant surprise and a unique end to the film.

The film's general set-up and premise, makes for an interesting plot-device as well, as we are following the journey of our lead Margot (played by Emily Bader) as she learns information about her past, we are learning with her. I found this a compelling way to re-introduce us to this world, and it makes the scares all the more impactful, as we are experiencing them, as Margot is. Christopher Landon has found a very effective way of telling a very familiar story, where the third act reveals and twists and turns throughout, creating an unexpected and legitimately terrifying third act.

The found-footage genre is one that does cop it from general moviegoing audiences, and yes like any genre, there has been some bad entries, but it’s a genre that can allow for a tense, and suspenseful outing at the cinemas, if you’re willing to look past some of the criticisms, “why are they still filming” being the major one. I found Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin to be a welcomed return to form for the genre and the Paranormal Activity franchise. Its suitably scary, eerie, and atmospheric and a compelling mystery, with the ending leaving it wide open for a sequel. If you’re a fan of the franchise and missed out on this one because you don’t have a Paramount Plus account, well lucky for you, the film has made its way to DVD here in Australia as of 21 February. Physical media collectors rejoice! Be sure to secure yours from Sanity below, and for all things film, television, music, gaming, and pop culture, be sure to stick with Sanity, they’ve got you covered!

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Buy Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin on DVD here

Christopher Pattison wrote this blog post for Sanity. See more from Chris here