Review: "Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin"

The franchise of Paranormal Activity had been on life support after the fourth installment and somehow made it all the way to six before deciding to do a soft reboot with Next of Kin. In a long list of films that had been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, Next of Kin could be added to that list as it originally was scheduled to be in theaters but instead went straight to streaming only on Paramount Plus. That alone could have also been an indication of how little faith the studio had in the film of actually being profitable despite it being a once successful franchise. Looking at the history of soft reboots to a horror franchise, they have rarely been succesful. The attempt to "reboot" this franchise is a modest one at best, being the seventh installment in the franchise it has very little to any kind of connection to the previous six films. In fact, it seems more like it could be connected to the Blair Witch franchise. It seems rather lazy by the studio, and maybe this film was originally conceptualized as a stand alone project that may have not sold well on it's own so they slapped the Paranormal Activity title to it.

The plot follows Margot (Emily Bader), a young woman who was abandoned by her mother at birth and had recently discovered that her mother was a part of an Amish community. She takes it upon herself to return to the community with her boyfriend Chris (Roland Buck), a sound guy Dale (Dan Lippert) and a camera with the intention of making a documentary about her past. She intends to learn about her mother from the community, why she left them and her but as she begins to ask more questions the people within the Amish community begin to seem afraid. At first it seems rather typical, Amish people looking wide-eyed at a bunch of outsiders but eventually that breaks when Margot and Chris notice the leader of the community is hiding something rather sinister. Margot begins to also believe that her mother is still within the community and not gone after all.

The atmosphere created within Next of Kin is rather, dull. The formula originally created with the first Paranormal Activity is there in theory as it is largely a found footage tale but Chris and his love for capturing every moment with whatever he can does lend itself to some rather impressive camera work but none of it enhances the film. Unlike previous installments, the camera was almost always used as a way to make scares more unique. Here, it just is a distraction, a poor distraction from a poorly executed film. The atmosphere isn't a powerful part of the scares, being in an Amish community as an outsider could have easily felt very claustrophobic but instead it ends up being rather campy, especially when the group of friends begin to notice the rather diabolical things at play.

Similar to the original Paranormal Activity, the lead actress is a bit of an unknown but does a good job in the role. Emily Bader's Margot struggles with the unknown question of why her mother abandoned her which fuels her throughout. Bader grounds the film even through it's more ridiculous moments. Tom Nowicki also does an equally good job in the role of Jacob, the dour elder that leads the Amish community. He turns the act of simply saying grace and welcoming back a long lost sister into a pseudo-veiled threat of sorts. The biggest fault of this film may just be it's climax. All of the machinations leading up to the finale fall to the side. In previous entries in the series, the finale is usually the moment with the biggest scares but in this case it seems more hellbent on setting up potential future installments and being rather silly. The scares do a poor job of delivering even in a scene that tries so hard to be tense.

It's a shame seeing a once successful horror series go out with such a whimper but it makes sense seeing as how the studio really didn't have much faith behind it. The film was rarely advertised if at all and magically appeared on Paramount Plus for the Halloween weekend. Again, it seems like a film that doesn't have much to do with the series to begin with. Previous entries followed a rather surprisingly convoluted story and that is abandoned entirely to potentially create something new focused on a different demon or monster. However, unlike previous entries, the demons remain scariest when they're sight unseen.