‘Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones’ Is A ‘Real Story’ Of Latinos Aimed At Latino Movie Goers

While everyone loves to be scared, the “Paranormal Activity” movie series struggled following its last release. The eerie thriller proved successful in overseas markets, despite having a crash and burn reception in the US. “Paranormal Activity 4” is considered the worst reviewed, additionally the film only brought made half of what it’s predecessor “Paranormal Activity 3” brought in. So now instead of creating another direct sequel of the terrifying things that go bump in the night, Blumhouse Productions, the studio responsible for the horror series decided to go in a different direction with a new target audience. Luckily for fans of the original “Paranormal Activity” movies, the style of directing will not be changed, despite sitting out of 2013, the studio has decided to bring their signature “found-footage” style and spice it up! And we mean literally, their new brainchild is “Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones,” and if you couldn’t already tell from the preview this movie has some Latino flare for the dramatics!

“Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones” revolves around Jesse, a young Latino who is partying with his friends and girlfriend, at an apartment building in Oxnard, California. After an elderly woman dies in the apartment directly beneath the apartment, the partygoers decide to investigate the strange scene of the crime. Although they get way more than they bargained for, discovering satanic objects of black magic, missing tapes from “Paranormal Activity 3” and a photo of the protagonist Jesse. The true horror of the film begins when Jess notices a bite mark on his arm, while he cant remember coming in contact with anything he disregards it, a decision he soon regrets. Instead of the standard “Paranormal Activity” setting, of a white family in a suburban neighborhood, “The Marked Ones” brings some Latin realness in with this “real” story of possession. The LA Times reports that the film, which is being described as the “cousin” of “Paranormal Activity” ditches the “WASPy suburbia” for a “working class barrio” and includes more humor and visual effects than any of it’s predecessors.

"Trying to keep interest in anything for this long is a real challenge," said Adam Goodman, president of Paramount Film Group. "And quality control is a really hard thing to keep up." With the new reboot costing Paramount Pictures about $6 million the distribution studio is looking for a serious return and their Latino target audience is sure to provide them with that. With Latinos making up about 17% of the United States population, and a movie aimed at this normally horror film loving group, the studios bargain seems like a sure bet. Paramount estimates that Latino ticket buyers accounted for about 11% of the domestic gross of the first "Paranormal Activity" film in 2009, rising to an estimated 19% for the last sequel. In addition to Latinos, generally speaking, enjoying horror movies, the writer-director Christopher Landon and producer Jason Blum wished to produce a truly authentic, yet still horrifying of the Latino community coming into contact with the supernatural. "The audience is sophisticated and can see through something that's inauthentic," said Blum.

Despite the film’s attempt to be as authentic as possible, the characters speak English through the film, and due to it’s found footage style “The Marked Ones” could not feature subtitles. Landon struggled with the idea of Latinos not speaking Spanish, at any point during the film; therefore they decided to include one character who only spoke in her native tongue. A stubborn, old, abuelita! "If you are Spanish-speaking, you might understand about 20% more of the dialogue than if you don't," Blum said.