Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones
Paramount Pictures | Release Date: January 3, 2014 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
42
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 19 Critic Reviews
Positive:
2
Mixed:
11
Negative:
6
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
USA TodayClaudia PuigJan 3, 2014
It's a welcome update, qualifying as the best in the series since the first film captivated and unnerved audiences in 2007. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesMark OlsenJan 2, 2014
The Marked Ones is refreshingly uncynical and straightforward in its desire to simply be a movie that makes the audience jump and be scared. It's a fun fright film and wants to be nothing more. Read full review
60
TimeRichard CorlissJan 4, 2014
Provides the familiar cheap thrills but with a salsa tang. Read full review
60
VarietyAndrew BarkerJan 3, 2014
The haunted house setpieces provide reliable doses of jolts, even if one can see the scaffolding of each scare being built from miles away, and director Landon has fun with some clever camera placement here and there. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterJustin LoweJan 3, 2014
The script succeeds by expanding the Paranormal Activity mythology with additional details and even a few surprising twists. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comSheila O'MalleyJan 4, 2014
Thankfully, the entertaining chemistry between the two young leads in Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones (Andrew Jacobs and Jorge Diaz), almost saves it. Read full review
50
The New York TimesNeil GenzlingerJan 3, 2014
The changes — goodbye, white suburbia; hello, gritty diversity — recharge the batteries somewhat. But there’s no escaping that the found-footage phenomenon has gone from fresh and original to just plain annoying. Read full review
50
Village VoiceStephanie ZacharekJan 3, 2014
If The Marked Ones is mildly brilliant in the first half, it stumbles witlessly into its own dumb pentagram in the second. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Jan 3, 2014
For every viewer happily creeped out by the franchise's simple scare tactics — its video vision of things going bump and creak and moan in the dark — there's another moviegoer completely unfazed by such low-budget prankery. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam LaceyJan 3, 2014
This entry has been described as a “cousin” to the other movies. Specifically, The Marked Ones is a Hispanic cousin, customized for Latino audiences in the United States where the series is particularly popular. Read full review
50
The DissolveScott TobiasJan 3, 2014
The shocks are no less effective than the ones in the other Paranormal Activity movies, but no more original, either, with only the whipping of a handheld camera to set it apart from the offscreen gamesmanship that’s long been the series’ stock in trade. Read full review
50
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreJan 3, 2014
As exhausted as this series and the genre it comes from is, it still manages a few decent jolts thanks to that new approach and a pretty good cast’s reactions to what they, and we, see through the video camera’s viewfinder. Read full review
40
Time OutTom HuddlestonJan 8, 2014
As ever with this series, the shocks are cheap but effective, and the shaky-cam aesthetic adds an unsettling layer of realism (if you’re willing to overlook the innate ridiculousness of the film-everything concept). Read full review
38
Boston GlobePeter KeoughJan 9, 2014
What I found more disturbing was the casual misogyny of the convoluted story line. Read full review
37
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanJan 4, 2014
This sharp left turn takes the films’ mythology in strange and not entirely satisfying new directions, including a crazy time-travel element. Read full review
30
Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovJan 8, 2014
Yeah, this movie's a dog, but you can't blame the producers for strip-mining the same old fool-proof formula to death … and beyond. Read full review
30
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriJan 3, 2014
Does anybody really find this crap scary anymore? Read full review
25
Slant MagazineChuck BowenJan 3, 2014
Several reels' worth of ugly, unshaped footage that wouldn't have been deemed fit for a movie's end-credit outtakes not so long ago. Read full review
20
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierJan 4, 2014
The concept is the same, and just as tired as it was when the second, third and fourth sequels to “Paranormal Activity’s” 2009 first installment. Read full review
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