Paranormal Activity 2 isn't so much a standard sequel as much as it's a companion piece to the original. Our main crew is Kristi and her family. Kristi is the sister of Katie from the first Paranormal Activity and this film is essentially a prequel that leads into the original. I like the link and while it doesn't explain anything from the first film it does flesh the mythology out a little more. As it's own film, I did enjoy PA2 more but it's still not great. The acting from this cast is much better. The only one that wasn't great was the toddler, who I can't fault because he's a toddler, but the main issue is that he laughs at inappropriate times, but since the camera feed is often very blurry and we can't see his face anyway, they could easily have fixed it in post. In general, the sound mixing is a huge issue. I always watch movies with subtitles anyway (just in case they mention things I didn't pick up or offer the only translation of a foreign language) but they were borderline necessary for PA2. I had my volume up twice as high as I usually do and still 80% of the time the subtitles said "Thud" and the character reacts to the alleged sound, I heard nothing. The dialog is usually pretty audible and clear but anytime someone is talking to the toddler at night, the audio is way too low. The cinematography is what it s because the gimmick limits how creative they can be, but there were little things that bothered me. In the first twenty minutes, a character sets a handheld camera down on a bed facing a baby monitor, but the angle isn't quite right, so after the character has walked away, the camera tilts up just a little to better frame the monitor. I'm sure the kayfabe reason is that a ghost/demon moved the camera, but, why would it give a fuck if the monitor is in frame and would the demon/ghost have even checked the camera? I say it every damn time with these paranormal movies, but I have to do it again. Since, ghosts aren't real, every writer and director gets to decide how they work in the world of their movie. However, why would ghost/demon be invisible but have a shadow? What's the purpose of the demon/ghost taking the pool Roomba out of the pool every night? I don't really have as many nit-picky things as I usually do for this kind of movie, but there is a different issue; PA2 is kind of boring. With the whole found footage genre (I guess this isn't really "found" footage but it works the same) whoever (in the word of the film) is assembling the footage picks out moments to show us for specific reasons; every scene is important and necessary to the overall story. PA2 has way too much extraneous bullshit that really doesn't need to be there. Even spooky paranormal stuff doesn't always feel important or even really make sense for a demon ghost to do. There are a few things like the pool cleaner robot that just don't make sense for the ghost/demon to do. For the most part, PA2 does things better than the last time, but the bar was so damn low that it would be hard not to have done better. I hated the first Paranormal Activity, but I didn't hate this one. It still just feels lazy, rushed, and amateur. One thing that I do wish they had carried over from the first was how they tried to make is seem like it was a real thing that happened. PA2 has a lame little card at the beginning thanking the friends and family of the characters and the local police department, but the first PA had the actors playing themselves with their names. Micah Sloat played Micah (small thing, it's always pronounced My-kah the entire movie except for when his own wife calls him ME-Kah) and Katie Featherston plays Katie. Still, PA2 is a big step in the right direction, but it's just a couple steps up the stairs from the basement; there is still a long way to go before it's a decent film.