パラノーマル・アクティビティ 第2章 TOKYO NIGHT Paranōmaru Akutibiti Dai Ni Shō: Tōkyō Naito

Directed by Toshikazu Nagae

Reviewed by the Devil Himself ~ Deep Red

Based on Paranormal Activity (2007) directed by Oren Peli.

Paranormal Activity 2: Tokyo Night (2010) is a spin-off to the original Paranormal Activity (2007). It was released in Japan two days before Paranormal Activity 2 (2010) was released in the U.S. and is an official part of the franchise.

A Japanese student Haruka Yamano played by Noriko Aoyama returns to Tokyo from California after breaking both her legs in a car accident. She is left alone with her brother Koichi played by Aoi Nakamura looking after her when their father Shigeyuki played by Kazuyoshi Tsumura returns to Singapore on a business trip. Koichi likes filming everything.

Haruka tells Koichi that her wheelchair moved sometime during the night. Suspecting paranormal activity Koichi leaves a pile of salt in Haruka’s room. The salt is mysteriously scattered and when they check the video they see it scatter by itself. Haruka lets Koichi film her while she sleeps. In the footage they find more evidence of paranormal activity although slight and then witness something first-hand.

I don’t really want to say too much about what happens; spoilers. I think it’s an OK film and an interesting part of the franchise. I’ve watched it a couple of times now and I appreciated it more the second time. It doesn’t mess with the series at all, if anything it widens the scope of the story, this is due largely to a connection made to the series as well as the overall similarity in texture and content throughout.

The cast are OK, likeable characters, OK actors. I think the only problem with the story is it feels a bit confined to the boundaries of the original film so unlike Paranormal Activity 2 (2010) the whole thing feels like a bit of a lacklustre remake rather than a continuation or a spin-off which doesn’t do it any favours; the far, far superior Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones (2014) showed just how good a spin-off can and should be.

Will the Paranormal Activity series bring in the connection made here? I don’t know. It’d be interesting if they did as it would validate this no end. I doubt that will happen, this will more than likely be swept under the rug and forgotten about, I mean there are three different endings to the original but only one fits comfortably into the franchise, this was an early spin-off and definitely has a detrimental effect on the overall momentum of the series.

Completists will want to check it out but will probably come away as I did feeling it’s barely worth their time which is a shame as it’s not a terrible film, it just doesn’t do enough individually and you’d be better off rewatching the original which again is far, far superior to this. Ultimately this is how not to cash in on another film’s success. Id rather watch Asylum mockbuster Paranormal Entity (2009) which although pretty terrible was a lot more fun, this is a very serious film that doesn’t really go anywhere so you just end up wondering what the point was exactly. Disappointing.

Also stars Kōsuke Kujirai as Jun Nagoshi, Maaya Morinaga as Mai Yaguchi, Ayako Yoshitani as Misuzu Kure, Tōze Yamada as the Exorcist and Shinji Matsubayashi as the Exorcist’s Assistant.ParanormalActivity2TokyoNight