Dear friend,
I had a random thought: I may have been a bit harsh with Speak No Evil 2024 a couple of weeks ago; while still not required viewing (and not as good as the Danish original), it dawned on me that so much of the current state of World affairs can be described by the simple exchange ‘Why are you doing this to us?’ ‘Because you let me’.
Well, ’letting’ somebody do something means having some agency, so this might be the optimistic view.
Maybe the old Latin saying Homo homini lupus is more correct. But, boy, I thought we had become better than this.
Sorry, enough with real-life horrors, let’s go back to demons and Ghost.
Paranormal Activity 3, directed by Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost, written by Christopher Landon, US, 2011 - ⭐⭐⭐½
As I mentioned last week, I temporarily re-subscribed to Paramount+, which unlocked the possibility of some more ‘comfort watching’ when I don’t know what else to choose. Unfortunately, Paranormal Activity 2, despite being listed in the catalogue, is not accessible, so I skipped right to the third chapter, which is also the sequel I remembered most fondly.
Fondness confirmed.
Having skipped chapter two, I was glad to see ‘modern day’ Katie and Christie in the ‘recap’ that opens the film. And since, now, I know that some of these events were very vaguely hinted at in the first film, I no longer think it massively contradicts the original. Bravo Landon.
Paranormal Activity 4, directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, written by Christopher Landon, and Chad Feehan, US, 2012 - ⭐⭐ (up from ⭐½)
I also told myself that I didn’t need to rewatch any Paranormal Activity sequel after the third one, so here I am, again, after suffering lazy catalogue scrolling, giving another chance to chapter four.
Also for this one, my initial impressions are confirmed, with a slightly higher rating ascribable, I think, to lower expectations. Everything I wrote less than a year ago still holds true, so I’m not going to write it again.
Paranormal Activity: Tokyo Night/パラノーマル・アクティビティ 第2章 TOKYO NIGHT, written and directed by Toshikazu Nagae, Japan, 2010 - ⭐⭐⭐
I had forgotten about the ’lost’ Paranormal spin-off, set in Japan and adapting the language of the original to J-Horror style and tropes.
Toby’s Tokyo Drift follows essentially the same story beats of Oren Peli’s film and adds Asian mediums and rituals, long-haired apparitions, Ju-On-like dynamics and a split-screen section. Too bad that it clashes a bit with the continuity that the American sequels created after this film came out.
It would have been cool to see other Paranormal spin-offs set in different parts of the world, absorbing local legends and customs.
Thunderbolts*, directed by Jake Schreier, written by Eric Pearson and Joanna Calo, US, 2025 - ⭐⭐⭐½
As with all Marvel films, I went to the cinema knowing as little as possible about it (luckily, the frequent promos I saw on TV during my recent trip to Italy didn’t spoil much). But I had come across a very scathing social media reaction by a critic I follow, so my expectations were very low as I sat down ready for yet another Marvel disappointment.
While the first half-hour didn’t do too much to improve my pre-judgment (Florence Pugh dealing with the death of her sister made me think of Midsummer a lot… wait, didn’t that happen in Little Women too? And in A Good Person it’s her sister-in-law), I slowly began to realise… I was enjoying this film! I agree the film’s depiction of mental health problems can be a bit superficial, but overall it was a quite original way of dealing with a superhero movie. And the whole room cheered at the end of the final post-credit scene in a way I hadn’t heard since the Doctor Strange and the Too Many Spider-men movie.
Ju-On: Origins/呪怨：呪いの家, directed by Sho Miyake, written by Takashige Ichise and Hiroshi Takahashi, Japan, 2020 - ⭐⭐⭐
Has this series been on Netflix all along?
Written by the author of Dark Water and the later, non-Shimizu, Ju-On films, and by Ringu’s screenwriter, without any involvement by the creator of the franchise, it purports to describe the ‘real life’ events that inspired the stories of Kayako and Toshio.
This way, it justifies the ‘Origins’ in the English title (absent from the original one, which focuses on ’the curse of the house’), without featuring either of the well-known ghosts.
Maybe if I had watched the latter two films, I would have enjoyed this series more. And I’m sure I would, anyway, if I rewatched it: that’s how every instance of the franchise has worked for me so far. But there are events in here that I don’t feel like revisiting anytime soon.