Prior to 2007 the found footage genre's success was limited to...

the first Blair Witch Project movie that premiered in 1999 with the caveat that the 2nd movie flopped hard. Like its predecessor in the subgenre the first Paranormal Activity movie relied heavily on guerrilla marketing. That term, guerrilla marketing, refers to marketing that doesn’t feel like marketing or straight up advertising despite being just that. The Paranormal Activity franchise used night vision camera footage of audience reactions, screaming and squirming in their seats as the action on screen unfolded, as the trailer for the film rather than relying on a traditional marketing campaign that featured a trailer to hook the audience.

In Paranormal Activity’s instance the hook was the fear, rather than a particular story or setting out to create an Oscar worthy plot. Additionally, like Blair Witch, the movie played with the idea that the found footage was real and happened after the very real film events. Using most of the actors real names to further muddy the waters between reality and fiction for viewers the filming also took place on location in San Diego inside a real home. Creators took what could’ve been setbacks like lesser known actors with a budget of less than $15,000 (main actors originally paid $500 after answering online ads for the parts) and made them the marketing benefits to earn enough buzz in the film festival circuit for Paramount Pictures to acquire it. After revamping the film with another $200,000 which included a modified ending, which the 2007 film is now famous for, it went on to earn about $194 million in the worldwide box office following a fall 2009 release.

Not only did this work excellently...

...for the creators and studio but it started what is now a 7 film franchise that includes 3 spinoffs to the original universe and characters in the 2007 original. Despite mixed reviews and receptions for many films in the franchise it is ultimately known as one of the most prolific modern horror franchises. As is true with many horror franchises however it has been a box office giant success with each installment raking in well over $75 million and the most successful over $200 million when theatrically released. The following Franchise Marathon post covers brief background, a plot overview, and review for each of those 7 films. For a more in depth review of Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin (2021) click here to redirect to that post.

Intro & Overview

Created, directed, and written by Oren Peli, the first installment, Paranormal Activity, received theatrical release in the US on September 25, 2009. Produced by himself, Jason Blum, and Steven Schneider as mentioned before the found footage film follows a couple in San Diego who begin to experience a haunting. Katie portrayed by Katie Featherstone and Micah portrayed by Micah Sloat are a normal, young couple aside from Katie having experienced paranormal activity at the behest of some nefarious presence since childhood.

Due to Katie’s suspicions Micah decides to film them while they sleep, hoping to catch some of the activity on film or to prove to Katie it’s all in her head. Unfortunately for the couple they do catch some activity, the sound of footsteps in the home while both are soundly asleep in frame. More fearful they seek outside help; they call in Dr. Freidrichs, a psychic played by an actor also named Freidrichs. He not only diagnoses their issue as a demon haunting, feeding on energy but also advises them to not interact with that demon in fear that will only make it stronger. He also gives them the contact information for a demonologist that might be able to help them, but Micah doesn’t take the situation seriously. Katie is now more interested in the paranormal investigation because of Freidrichs’ advising and insistence that the demon will follow Katie.

Nights continue to pass and the hauntings...

...worsen while picking up intensity which leads to Micah taunting the demon. On the 13th night they are woken up suddenly by a loud scream and thudding then two nights later Katie is seen standing at the end of the bed staring at Micah while he sleeps for a few hours before going outside to sit on a swing in the backyard. When Micah finds her still outside he tries to get her to come inside but her voice is like she’s still asleep. He goes to get her something from inside and she startles him by having followed him but Katie doesn’t remember this incident by the following day. Micah then decides to bring home a Ouija board to communicate with the demon despite Freidrichs warning not to, which makes Katie upset. Not surprisingly the session ends with the board on fire after the planchette moves on its own.

Despite this seeming like a climactic point they continue investigating when Micah places white powder throughout their hallway and around their bed. They go to sleep but are woken up and find hand prints but no foot prints in the powder that lead from their room to the attic. Following this clue they discover a partially burnt photo of Katie as a child that she thought was lost to a house fire with an unknown cause. The building incident list doesn’t deter the couple and the following night they are awoken by banging doors and lights turning off and on. Upon inspection they discover a framed couple photo has been smashed and the portion of Micah is scratched out. When they contact the demonologist they’d been recommended he’s out of town so Freidrichs comes again and panics upon entering the home. He’s so freaked out that he apologizes and gets the hell out of there as the couple begs for help but he doesn’t return. After this the hauntings become physical and Katie is ripped from the bed and drugged into the hallway which causes them to finally make plans to leave the house and stay at a hotel.

Katie is overtaken then, tightly gripping...

...a cross that Micah rips out and burns alongside the photo of Katie from the attic. He goes to leave but Katie in a weird state tells him that things will be okay with a voice unlike her own. Somehow this does convince Micah to stay and the next night Katie stares at Micah again but then leaves the room and from the off camera hallway screams for help. When Micah goes to find Katie after waking in a panic the room is quiet, the screaming stopped. Suddenly Micah’s body is flung back into the room and towards the camera, presumably dead. Katie then enters the room again and approaches Micah’s body and smiles at the camera, appearing like she’s smiling at the audience and then lunges at the camera attacking the scene to black.

This is one ending but the film has...

...multiple endings, alternates that Paramount created for theatrical release. One alternate diverges from the original when Katie awakens and stares at Micah from beside him and then goes downstairs on camera. Moments pass then Katie screams Micah’s name and he wakes up, rushing to her still on camera which catches Katie screaming. Micah tries to comfort her but suddenly wrenches his body in pain which stops Katie’s screaming and audible footsteps hulk up the stairs before Micah’s body is chucked at the camera that knocks it over, landing sideways and revealing Katie standing in the doorway. Soaked with blood she walks into the room and lowers near Micah’s body before smiling into the camera before lunging at it to a black screen. Text appears that reveals Micah’s body was found but that Katie is missing and her whereabouts are unknown at the time of the film.

The 3rd version is the same up until Katie wakes in the middle of the night and stands staring at Micah but doesn’t move to his side of the bed. After several hours she goes downstairs and screams loudly which wakes Micah who runs down to her as the screaming carries on. A struggle ensues while Katie continues screaming then things suddenly stop and go quiet followed by more silence then loud footsteps on the stairs. Katie enters the bedroom covered in blood with a knife from the kitchen in her grasp. She closes and locks the bedroom door and then stands next to the camera before slitting her throat and falling dead to the floor.

Intro & Overview

Following the Paranormal Activity success the second installment, Paranormal Activity 2, released in 2010, one year after the first on October 22. With a larger budget of $3 million the movie acts as a prequel to the first movie and generated $177 million at the worldwide box office. Also diverging from the original the sequel opts for actors not portraying versions of themselves with Sprague Grayden playing Kristi Rey, Katie’s sister, and Brian Boland playing Daniel Rey, Kristi’s husband. Opening in 2006 with a burglary, the only item stolen from Kristi and Dan’s home is a necklace Katie gifted Kristi. Due to the robbery Dan installs cameras throughout the home, coming up with a clever solution to films being throughout a home in 2006, something only popularized in recent years.

Following the camera installation the couple discover their housekeeper's nanny burnt sage inside the home in an attempt to cleanse it of evil spirits. This seems a bit intense but Dan isn’t convinced anything paranormal is happening despite footage evidence from the security system. Katie and Kristi discuss demons they both remember being tormented by as children after Kristi explains she also believes their house is haunted. Ali Rey portrayed by Molly Ephraim is introduced as Dan’s daughter who begins helping them investigate the paranormal occurrences. She informs them about humans making deals with demons to exchange first born sons’ souls for wealth and power and that the deals not fulfilled result in a demon attaching to the family until the next son is born. Kristi and Dan’s son Hunter would be the first male born since the 1930s and the intensity of the attacks escalates.

The family’s dog, a German Shepherd named Abby, is attacked by the demon and has a seizure, taken to the vet by Dan and Ali. While they are out Kristi is attacked and drugged into the basement where the demon possesses her. Ali, unaware that Katie is possessed, stays home with her and hears weird noises from the basement, discovering the Latin word, meus, scratched into the door translated to “mine” with scratch marks around it. She goes upstairs to check on the baby and finds Kristi holding him with a bite mark in her leg which causes Ali to call Dan and insist he get back home. Ali shows Dan the security footage of Kristi’s attack when he gets home and he calls the housekeeper he fired for help, Martine portrayed by Vivis Cortez. Martine makes a cross and intends to exorcise the demon from Kristi who won’t remember the period she’s been possessed.

Dan informs Ali that the plan is...

...to pass the demon from Kristi to Katie so that Kristi and Hunter will be safe to which Ali demands he not due to it being unfair. He is resolved to carry out his plan and that night confronts Kristi with the cross and after attacking him all of the lights go out, leaving the house dark. With a handheld camera night vision is activated and Dan is unable to easily find his wife or son, then taking the camera around in order to look for them. He ventures into the basement where he’s attacked by Kristi and uses the cross to defend himself which causes her to fall and the house to shake. After this violent outburst things are calm and both Martine and Dan put Kristi to bed and proceed to burn a photo of a young Katie, which ends up being the same photo from the first movie. It is confirmed that they succeeded in passing the demon on to Katie from Kristi. Flash forward 3 weeks and Katie is over at their house explaining that strange occurrences are happening to her, which mirror those of the first film.

The movie finishes with October 9, which is the same night that Micah dies in Paranormal Activity 1 and picks up with Katie breaking into Kristi’s house. After breaking in she murders Dan and Kristi then takes Hunter and leaves the house. Like one of the alternate endings of the first movie a text card appears that informs Ali returns from a school trip and finds the bodies of her stepmother and father but that Katie and Hunter are still missing. With the added context of the first movie this ending is jaw dropping and reveals that Katie had the events of that film inflicted on her by family members. Before this detail can be fully processed and added to the updated lore, karma balances between the sisters when Katie stops by Kristi’s house to kidnap her nephew before disappearing into the unknown. This then makes the first movie's end even more intense with a baby included in Katie’s disappearance that she stole after committing a double homicide. The ending also dispels any question if Katie kills Micah or he was killed by a demon and also solidifies certain alternate endings while making the one where Katie dies improbable.

Intro & Overview

Since the prequel route worked once and the ending of Paranormal Activity 2 making a future Kristi impossible the 3rd installment jumps back even further in time. Introducing a box of video tape footage that Katie delivers to a pregnant Kristi in March 2005 the movie transitions to that footage created by their mother Julie, portrayed by Lauren Bittner, and her boyfriend Dennis, portrayed by Chris Smith, in 1988. Similarly to the other 2 movies, weird occurrences surrounding Katie, portrayed by Chloe Csengery, and an imaginary friend named Tobi inciting even more recording. On par with the vibe Dennis gives off he and Julie attempt to create a sex tape but an earthquake breaks out, causing dust to be knocked from the ceiling. In a creative scare that Paranormal Activity had come to be known for by movie 3 outlines a figure in the falling dirt, revealing a figure had been in the room the whole time watching them.

Dennis is filmed reviewing the footage from this earthquake and catches the dirt outline, showing his friend Randy, portrayed by Dustin Ingram, who suggests that Dennis arm the entire residence with cameras to capture all of the incidents. Just that night they film Katie in the room she shares with Kristi, portrayed by Jessica Tyler Brown, getting up in the middle of the night and having a conversation with someone out of frame. The strangeness causes Dennis to ask her about it the following day and she informs him she was talking to Tobi, her imaginary friend.

The couple end up hiring a babysitter, Lisa...

...portrayed by Johanna Braddy, to watch the girls but she is terrified before the night is through and begs to leave. Due to being upset about losing their babysitter Katie tells Tobi they’re no longer friends and Dennis discovers a demonology related symbol in the girls’ closet. When Kristi becomes sick Julie and Dennis take her to the hospital and leave Katie at home with Randy. They play Bloody Mary in the bathroom and after nothing happens she insists  they play again and Randy gets a large, unexplained scratch on his torso. Suddenly a black figure moves past the door and shuts it repeatedly hard. Katie is terrified and sobs while Randy decides to investigate outside the bathroom.

When he goes to investigate the furniture starts being tossed around then stopping suddenly and a crying Katie apologizes for everything. Randy returns the room to normal and leaves in a rush when Julie and Dennis return, warning them that whatever is going on is dangerous. Dennis then informs Julie the following day that the symbol is from a coven of witches who manipulated girls capable of having kids into having sons that they then forced them to give to the coven, forgetting everything right after. She doesn’t believe him and the couple argue about everything after she dismisses his thinking. Following this the demon attacks intensify and it harms Katie to force Kristi to listen and do what it wants her to do.

The demon makes her ask to go to visit...

...her grandmother Lois, portrayed by Hallie Foote, but Julie shuts that down after being impacted by the hauntings she agrees to. Dennis adds cameras to his set up with a new shot of the guest bedroom and then they’re woken up in the night and Julie goes to figure out what is going on but Dennis goes to look for her shortly after when she doesn’t return. Behind a curtain he sees a human shaped silhouette, another new tactic employed by the franchise. On his walls are strange symbols like the one he found in the girls’ closet and goes to the garage. When he turns on the camera light in the darkness it’s revealed that the garage contains several women, including the grandmother Lois, all in dark attire.

Rather than quickly capture him...

...they pace at him in steady, normal speed motion, with a certainty they’ll catch him. Julie is at the top of the staircase when he gets back inside and he approaches only to discover to his terror that she is limp and levitating. Suddenly she’s thrown at Dennis and he falls down the stairs with her lifeless body. Heard off camera Dennis tries to help Julie and get her up but can only sob as he accepts she’s not alive. Kristi finds Dennis and he gets her and hides in a closet but an invisible being growls and tries to get into the closet but seemingly gives up. When they think it’s safe to leave a dark figure goes past and slams the door shut, the two then walking through the kitchen. Dennis sees the women from the garage now outside, circling a bonfire, and then find Katie near Julie’s body crying. Dennis approaches her and puts a hand on her shoulder but when she turns around she is visibly possessed and she breaks into a demonic scream.

Dennis is swiftly flung across the room by something invisible and injures his leg which causes Katie to run away. Dennis tries to make it to Julie’s body but Lois appears and blocks him, looking down with a straight expression. He’s pinned to the ground by the invisible force and then his back is bent backwards swiftly, breaking it and thus killing him. Calmly Lois motions for Katie and Kristi to come to her, and they all go upstairs together. Kristi then calls Tobi to join them and then a faint growl is heard before the shot cuts to static then turns off completely, which signals the film's ending. This film doesn’t have the ending text cards from the first 2 but is a prequel to those events so presumably Katie, and her nephew Hunter, are still missing after she killed Kristi years later in 2006 at the end of Paranormal Activity 2.

Later that night Wyatt enters Alex’s room...

...and watches as she levitates in her sleep and this cuts to the following day with Alex video chatting with Ben. She goes back and forth to the garage after hearing it open then close and on the last time she’s trapped in the garage when the car turns on and begins pumping carbon monoxide into the closed space. Meanwhile Katie has broken into their house and informs Hunter/Wyatt that she will wait for him until he’s ready. Back in the garage Alex smashes a car window with a golf club and drives the car through the garage door to reach fresh air. Despite all of this physical evidence her parents don’t believe her and the footage isn’t available to show them as proof. Without warning Holly remains and is confronted by an invisible force when Katie enters their home the next day. She’s thrown against a wall and then the floor, presumably killing her. Katie drags Holly’s body away and hides it so that when Ben gets home later he believes no one is home and not that anything happened.

Ben proceeds to call Alex with the update that he found more information about the coven related to the symbol they encountered. From the view looking out from her room Ben enters but unbeknownst to him Katie comes up behind him and before he is even aware she snaps his neck, killing him instantly. When Alex and Doug return home he believes he sees Holly taking Wyatt over to Katie’s house and goes to investigate which leaves Alex to discover Ben’s body to her horror and dismay. Alex runs outside to warn her dad but sees him drug inside Katie’s house by an invisible force and runs to hide until she hears Wyatt call out to her. Before she can go back outside to search for him Katie attacks Alex amidst screaming.

Alex manages to...

...make it outside and runs into Wyatt who she begs to go with her and leave but he has a blank expression and stares at her. Suddenly women with the same blank expression he has appear around them and behind him, causing Alex to turn to run away only to be stopped and killed by Katie. Once this happens the scene cuts to black and the post-credit scene shown to audiences in theatrical releases shows 2 men in Mexico speaking Spanish with a camera. The pair go into a store and realize it’s a witchcraft store, causing them to turn to go out of the exit but an old woman appears and tells them, “this is only the beginning,” in Spanish. The men leave the store scared and the footage cuts to an easter egg for the next installment Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones.

During the ritual Jesse breaks an egg and reveals the contents are red before the room begins shaking. Hector turns on night vision and uses the camera to look around the room, serving as the audience's guide. Following a high pitched noise in the corner of the room the edges appear to be sucked into themselves when Jesse reappears, like portal travel. With Jesse are pieces of unfamiliar furniture, a callback to moving furniture in previous installments. The 3 not possessed run from the room but when they return they find Jesse unaware of what has just happened and confused. The next day he wakes up not doing well and Irma runs a cold bath for him but he disappears when she leaves the room. Hector goes to find him and he’s outside looking down with delight at his grandmother’s injured body at the bottom of the stairs, implying he pushed her. When Hector runs to her Jesse disappears again.

Marisol and Hector have another...

...confrontation with Jesse when they try to flee, Marisol having to use a bat to knock him out. The pair put him in the car and plan to take him to the hospital and reveal that his eyes have gone black. Suddenly their car is struck by a truck, and while Marisol and Hector collect themselves one of the passengers in the truck takes Jesse’s passed out body from the wreckage. The car flees with Jesse and after this Marisol and Hector resolve to go to what is the ritual house with Arturo and his friend Santo. The foursome arrive at what is Lois’s house, a location where all the witches have been seen in previous movies. Santo attempts to pick the lock while the others walk around the property until they hear a woman screaming from inside. At this same moment women came out and towards Marisol, Hector, and Arturo which Arturo gets away by firing a shotgun. He tells Marisol and Hector to get out of there and they find that Santo is dead, stabbed in the back as he tries to get into the house.

Hector and Marisol flee inside the house and realize the entire outside is surrounded by coven members. Looking for a way out Hector comes across a room with a symbol on the floor and a horse head in the center, a voice calling his name quietly. He goes to the window in the room and sees Arturo’s body hit the glass before an entity tries to break in. Seeing this Hector rushes out of the room and tries to find Marisol as he searches the house frantically. Her body is then dropped through a skylight in the house and Hector flees towards a door but is stopped by coven witches before he reaches it. Detouring he hides in a closet until things seem to have quieted down only for him to be momentarily blinded by a white sheet. When it falls he sees Jesse who lets out a roar then attacks towards Hector who is able to escape and lock himself in a room with markings on the door. Jesse attempts to convince Hector to let him in but when he doesn’t Jesse opts to break into the room in his possessed state.

Hector then rushes out the door with the camera...

...and is actually in a garage now, which is revealed to be Micah and Katie’s house from Paranormal Activity. He witnesses Katie walking downstairs and grabbing a knife, presumably the night she murders Micah before disappearing. To the audience’s horror Hector has no idea about the ensuing events and rushes to Katie for help who then screams to Micah for help. When Micah gets downstairs in his panic he believes Hector to be an intruder thief and attacks him only to be attacked by Katie who stabs him. Hector runs away to the garage but is stopped in his tracks by Jesse whose face is inhuman with black eyes and sharp teeth. He knocks the camera out of Hector’s hands and kills him before an old lady picks up the camera calmly and turns it off, ending the movie.

It’s revealed that Tobi wanted to...

...materialize into the world and needed Leila’s blood to accomplish this. On camera she’s seen entering a doorway to another world that Tobi leads her to and when Ryan sees this he and Emily take Leila from the house to a hotel. Father Todd tries to cleanse the house but he’s stopped by Tobi and strangled. Ryan then gets the demon in a white sheet and dumped holy water on it while finishing the prayer which makes Leila return to normal as the demon disappears. They think things are over until Skylar vomits blood on them that begins burning Mike and her which kills both of them. Ryan and Emily chase Leila when she runs away but Ryan has a large arm through his chest and Leila leads Emily through the portal in her room. They arrive in the 1992 house and she confronts a human version of Tobi, pleading to have Leila spared, but she’s killed and her body flies at the camera mirroring Micah’s in the original. Leila and Tobi walk off together which is what the film ends on.

On this ride we learn that Margot’s family, the Bailers, aren’t even Amish. At the store while the worker is getting the right battery they use his computer to look up “Asmodeus”, a word that they’d come across while breaking into the Bailer’s belongings. Lo and behold Asmodeus is the demonic prince of lust, suffering, and wrath, so definitely not good. They learn that Asmodeus infected, or attacked, some Norwegian village and they turned against one another and bad stuff started happening. They turned to “the White Witch” who made it so the demon would pass from daughter to daughter in a particular family line in order to contain it or it would be unleashed. Little Lad, the sensible king that he is, puts two and two together and identifies that they believe Margot is the daughter with which this demon needs to be passed to. Chris tries to point out that this stuff can’t possibly be real and in one of my favorite rationalizations in a horror movie to date Little Lad explains that regardless of it being real or not the Bailers believe it is real so Margot is obviously still in mad danger-facts. 

They both make it back to the farm to find...

...Margot missing and a possessed Sam being funky in the hallway and he explains to them that if they stay inside until the bell stops ringing they’ll be solid. So of course what do they not do? Stay inside the damn house until the bell stops. Fast forward a bit and obviously after some tension, drama, and Jacob falling down the hole to hell we end up back at the bottom of the hole where a woman we can assume is the White Witch is performing a ritual on Margot that Chris interrupts. The White Witch gets really stressed that the salt protection barrier has been disturbed, which any horror fan knows is not great. We then get to see the demon creature, which manages to live up to all of the horrifying expectations set. 

Surprisingly they manage to...

...get out of the hole to hell and a battle ensues. We lose Dale as they run to the barn (RIP Little Lad) and after some tense moments Margot confronts the creature demon who she addresses as Sarah and mom. Next is an interesting and really important franchise moment; for the first time I know of we leave found-footage and go to regular footage. It makes sense in this scene and I think makes it possible for the story to continue because we don’t need to worry about a camera falling and catching drama and then it not making sense for a camera to still be in use by the creature. In this real footage ending Margot defeats the creature by throwing it down the same bale hole that she almost fell down in the beginning of the movie in the family's barn, fulfilling that foreshadow.

At this point we need a reason to stick around to see the terror unfold so Margot and Chris go to find the keys to the van on Little Lad’s body. Things have gone crazy while they fought off the creature and the whole community is attacking one another, someone with their eyes gouged out running past, multiple fires, and other signs of chaos. Surprisingly Chris and Margot make it out of there in the van after some jump scares and things cut away from them, presumably both making it out alive.

This is where the text for a franchise conclusion take will go. This is where the text for a franchise conclusion take will go. This is where the text for a franchise conclusion take will go. This is where the text for a franchise conclusion take will go. This is where the text for a franchise conclusion take will go. This is where the text for a franchise conclusion take will go. This is where the text for a franchise conclusion take will go. This is where the text for a franchise conclusion take will go. This is where the text for a franchise conclusion take will go. This is where the text for a franchise conclusion take will go. This is where the text for a franchise conclusion take will go. This is where the text for a franchise conclusion take will go. This is where the text for a franchise conclusion take will go. This is where the text for a franchise conclusion take will go.

This is where the text for a franchise conclusion take will go. This is where the text for a franchise conclusion take will go. This is where the text for a franchise conclusion take will go. This is where the text for a franchise conclusion take will go. This is where the text for a franchise conclusion take will go. This is where the text for a franchise conclusion take will go. This is where the text for a franchise conclusion take will go. This is where the text for a franchise conclusion take will go. This is where the text for a franchise conclusion take will go. This is where the text for a franchise conclusion take will go.

Highest Audience Rating

This is where the text for a franchise conclusion take will go. This is where the text for a franchise conclusion take will go. This is where the text for a franchise conclusion take will go. This is where the text for a franchise conclusion take will go. This is where the text for a franchise conclusion take will go. This is where the text for a franchise conclusion take will go. This is where the text for a franchise conclusion take will go. This is where the text for a franchise conclusion take will go. This is where the text for a franchise conclusion take will go. This is where the text for a franchise conclusion take will go. This is where the text for a franchise conclusion take will go. This is where the text for a franchise conclusion take will go. This is where the text for a franchise conclusion take will go. This is where the text for a franchise conclusion take will go.

This is where the text for a franchise conclusion take will go. This is where the text for a franchise conclusion take will go. This is where the text for a franchise conclusion take will go. This is where the text for a franchise conclusion take will go. This is where the text for a franchise conclusion take will go. This is where the text for a franchise conclusion take will go. This is where the text for a franchise conclusion take will go. This is where the text for a franchise conclusion take will go. This is where the text for a franchise conclusion take will go. This is where the text for a franchise conclusion take will go.