Warning: This list contains spoilers for the latest Paranormal Activity movie.
The newest installment of Paranormal Activity was recently released on the streaming service Paramount+. The film follows an adopted girl, Margot, and her friends who travel to an Amish community where her birth mother was from. Margot's hope is to find out answers as to why her mother gave her up for adoption but soon after arriving, the group learns the community is hiding a horrific secret.
While Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin received mixed reviews from critics, it had some decent scares and scenes of genuine tension. It's also been announced that Paramount+ will be releasing another installment of the franchise within the next two years, tentatively titled Paranormal Activity: The Other Side.
The Little Girl
The Paranormal Activity franchise is famous for not always coming out with intense jump scares, but building up the terror gradually. In one of the movie's earlier scenes, Margot visits the children of the Amish community.
At one point, she and the camera crew come across a seemingly shy little girl playing with a doll. Margot tries to break the tension by telling the girl that her mother was from the community...to which the girl replies, "She's still here."
Finding the Church
During the night, Margot and her friends see the glow of torches venture off into the woods, slowly fading away into the trees. The next morning they decide to investigate and stumble upon an old church built in the middle of the forest.
By this point, the audience is starting to suspect something is wrong in the secluded commune, and the sudden emergence of a towering church in the middle of nowhere brings a sense of dread. It's a perfect example of how, with great cinematography and a progressing story, something as mundane as a building can bring terror, as the audience is now afraid of what might take place inside.
The Finale Rampage
Unfortunately, the finale of Next of Kin is nowhere near its scariest moment. At the end of the film, the demonic force is unleashed and possesses the entire commune, leading to a full-blown onslaught.
While feeling more action-oriented than horror, it still creates tension, forcing the survivors to navigate their way through a rampaging, murderous coven of possessed villagers. This scene also added something new to the mythology of the Paranormal Activity franchise - the concept of large-scale possessions. It will be interesting to see if this is explored further in the next film.
The Sacrifice
When Margot and her friends hear a strange noise coming from the community's barn late one night, they decide to investigate. After climbing into the loft, they peek down, only to discover the community are holding a small goat calf that was born with two heads.
They then hear Jacob, the community's leader, say that the evil is spreading and that a sacrifice must be made. The scene used the combination of setting and mystery to create a scary moment, without even using any kind of jump scare.
The Ghost in the Window
As the film progresses and Margot has some terrifying encounters, she becomes convinced that there's some kind of paranormal activity taking place within the Amish community. One night, she starts hearing noises and decides to whip out her camera to investigate. For a brief moment, she stops at the window to look at her own reflection glowing in the camera's night vision.
Suddenly, a blurry face appears over her shoulder. It was the first true jump scare of the film and is also one of the very few times in the franchise where the audience is actually able to see the demonic figure.
Something in the Bed
One night, Margot sneaks into the attic, which appears to have been converted into a bedroom at one point, though it's now completely unused. After discovering a secret door, she uncovers writings and drawings from her mother, adding more questions about her whereabouts and decisions to abandon her.
Before long, Jacob enters the room, forcing Margot to hide under the bed and he then sees something and runs away in fear. Terrified, Margot remains under the bed, afraid to move, when suddenly, an entity lays down on the bed above her, pushing down the mattress. The scene brilliantly combined the feeling of being trapped with the terror of ghostly activity.
Sounds in the Well
Finally, Margot and her friends break into the secluded church. Inside, they find a well with a homemade pulley system used for lowering things down. Margot tells her friends to lower her, and as she descends, she notices that crosses and inscribing cover the walls.
Once at the bottom, which is shrouded in absolute darkness, she begins to hear noises, like some kind of animal is lurking around. Nothing is seen and Margot ends up being lifted up safely, but the atmosphere of terror was spot-on. It harkened back to the earlier Paranormal Activity films, where the fear came from what wasn't seen.
Margot's Mother
At the end of the movie, Margot is taken to the bottom of the well to be sacrificed to the demon. She will become the human vessel that will tame the beast, taking over for her mother...who has been chained up at the bottom of the well for decades. When her mom is finally seen, she's barely human anymore, being more demon than human.
It was an interesting twist in the franchise to show the long-term impacts of demonic possession, which depicted Margot's mother as a pure monster. This again creates numerous questions for the next film, which must choose between the unseen forces of the earlier films or the very physical and present forces of Next of Kin. Regardless of whether or not the move hurt the franchise in the long run, it was an interesting and scary addition.
