Paranormal Activity 2 (four and a half stars total) Add babies or little kids to any horror movie and it's automatically scarier. Top that off with a language barrier between characters, a family pet getting hurt or killed, and you can add confusion, depression and frustration to the mix. Paranormal Activity 2 (opened in theaters last weekend) isn't as funny as the first Paranormal, but I do believe a sequel can be better than its predecessor (see my 12/22/08 "Defense of Movie Sequels" post), and it has nothing to do with budget. Overall, there seem to be less effects shots this time around (no fire or footprints), although I admit the "dragged out of bed" scenes are much longer. If anything, the security cam slideshow on PA2 is more monotonous than the tripod, time-lapse photography on the original. The reason I think this sequel is better is that it has more of everything else: characters, rooms, and most importantly, ideas. It didn't make any sense for them to film each other while surfing the internet, to not have handy flashlights or a spare set of keys, but in our current economic climate, I'm still reeling over the idea of a family ancestor gambling on their posterity for wealth (for more on firstborn male heirs, see Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, 1995). It's not necessarily a novel concept to have an average, American family feeling powerless to effect change against unseen forces (global warming, the rising cost of college tuition and oil prices). Here are some sample morals I got from this movie, which you do have control over: Don't try to make contact with demons. Don't leave toys all over the living room floor. Don't fire your housekeeper, especially if she recommends abstinence to your teenage daughter. Do learn a second language.
RiffTrax Live! House on Haunted Hill (four stars total) For almost as long as I've lived in San Diego, I've seen pre-show advertising at different theater chains for live entertainment like The Met Opera, UFC matches and FIFA World Cup games. Until now I've always wondered, who actually goes to the theater to watch these events? This week I attended one of these satellite broadcasts for the first time and I was shocked to find the room filled to capacity (screen number "13" for what it's worth). RiffTrax ("we don't make movies, we make them funny!") features the later hosts from Mystery Science Theater 3000 doing comedic commentary from three, little, split-screen boxes on the side. Apparently they're based in San Diego and they've already done other live shows like last year's Plan 9 from Outer Space (1958) and then Reefer Madness (1936), earlier this year. I was excited to see a RiffTrax version of House on Haunted Hill (1959) because I'd forgotten most of the plot details since I last saw it, but also because I wanted to understand why other people seem to deride B-movies so much. Everybody laughed at the first jump scene, with the blind ghost rolling out of the closet, but I think that scene's scary. Maybe I like letting my imagination fill in the cracks, when budgetary constraints leave me cracks to fill in (for more on this, see my 4/5/10 "Fine Art Versus Popular Culture" post), or maybe other people just laugh nervously more than I do. The hosts made an astute observation that "the hill is what's haunted - the house is perfectly fine," but mostly they inserted current pop culture jokes about Jersey Shore, Lady Gaga, and Vincent Price's involvement with Michael Jackson's Thriller, along with the usual race and gay jokes. I came to the realization that the educational short films the comedians show before the feature presentation act as icebreakers while they get warmed up. I came to accept that audiences aren't any harder on B-movies than the characters in those movies are on each other, and I learned that the house in the movie was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in real life, so I think it's safe to say I had a very enlightening evening in a dark, old house.
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