After a burglary, Kristi (Sprague Grayden) and her husband Daniel Rey (Brian Boland) install security cameras throughout their house. The cameras capture footage of Daniel firing the maid (Vivis Colombetti) for burning sage to ward off “evil spirits” and a visit from Kristi’s sister, Katie (Katie Featherston). They also capture doors opening and closing by themselves, a dog barking at nothing, and a possessed Kristi ominously staring at her newborn son, Hunter.

Paranormal Activity 2 begins a few weeks before the start of the first Paranormal Activity. By the end, the two movies have caught up with each other and the audience learns what Katie did after she killed Micah. The film also reveals what specifically led to the spirit going after Katie in the first place. (Daniel, you idiot.)

Considering that the sequel repeats the found-footage format and recreates many of the same scares from the first film, it’s surprising just how well it works. The stakes are a little bigger here, in that it’s established that the evil spirit is after baby Hunter. In the first film, nobody cared about Micah, but in this film we actually do care about Kristi, the baby, and Kristi’s stepdaughter, Ali (Molly Ephraim). We don’t care about Daniel because he’s a jerk. Kristi and Katie appear to have really bad judgment when it comes to picking a mate.

Lisa has already done an excellent job reviewing the third, fourth, and fifth films in this series. So I’ll be jumping forward to the sixth film tomorrow.