Score: 2 / 5
Do franchises ever end anymore? When I heard Christopher Landon was returning to write a new installment of Paranormal Activity, I confess myself a little excited but mostly bewildered. The franchise spent a lot of time and money in 2015 to fully end the cycle Oren Peli had created in 2007. The Ghost Dimension, which split fans due to its heavy reliance on CGI and poor narrative focus determined to tie up some of the loose ends that had dangled for far too long, effectively ended the franchise on a note divergent from the material that made the franchise so spectacular and effective. As such, it was popularly considered a disappointment. Maybe it shouldn't be a surprise that someone wanted to create a course-correcting new entry.
But Next of Kin is a shockingly bizarre entry that nobody wanted and probably even fewer have actually seen, much less appreciated. I had my doubts when it was announced as a Paramount+ exclusive film, but I was willing to give it a try anyway. But there is essentially no connection between this new film and the previous six, not in plot, character, setting, or even aesthetic. None. Sure, it carries the appearance of a found footage film, one shot admittedly with some beautiful cinematography, but the logic is completely gone. The excessive edits of the film bounce back and forth between what appear to be multiple cameras (often in unlikely places) when there is really only one in use. Repeatedly in the film I guffawed aloud as the edits revealed impossibilities in in-world camera techniques that made it impossible to suspend my disbelief entirely. By the climax, I was a but accustomed to the bizarre unbelievability, and director William Eubank (Underwater) did start to embrace the visual chaos he unleashed, but I was too far gone at that point to relate to the terror experienced by the protagonist.
Margot (Emily Bader) recently discovered that her mother -- who abandoned her as a child -- was a member of an Amish community. Curious about her past, she has enlisted her boyfriend and friends (for sound and camera capture) to help make a documentary. One wonders if her "documentary" is for YouTube only. But upon meeting the community members, her suspicions are piqued: her mother was clearly a controversial figure among locals, as several refuse to talk about her or cast dark looks upon mentioning her name. Perhaps this uptight community conceals the reason why her mother let her go. And where is Margot's mother now? The film's earlier scenes are clearly well-researched on Amish people (the reactions of the children to seeing outsiders are especially accurate, to a chilling and mildly comical level), but it also heavily relies on Othering them to create a somewhat icky "Scary Amish People" dread for most of the film. Even when -- spoiler alert -- this community is revealed to be not Amish at all, the taste is still bitter.
It's not an original idea. I thought multiple times of similar movies like The Village, The Ritual, The Visit, and even The Wicker Man and Midsommar, to which this one is clearly related aesthetically and thematically: Outsiders enter a sacred community whose religious or social ties antiquate them and who harbor a terrible secret. Here, there is a supernatural element not far off from The Blair Witch Project or the previous Paranormal Activity films, but the actual plot points and setting have nothing to do with the existing franchise. The only connection is the ultimate presence -- you guessed it -- of the same demon whose behaviors gave the series its title. Asmodeus (also called "Toby" in previous installments, a wry reference to the biblical/apocryphal Book of Tobit in which the demon prominently features) is indeed the being to whom this religious community devotes itself, and he's causing problems again as he tries to incarnate or manifest himself. Other than his presence, and the loose found footage format, Next of Kin felt keenly like an original story that was hijacked or repurposed by the studio and rebranded with Paranormal Activity ideas. With some work, it could just as easily have been a sequel to any other film I've already mentioned here.
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