Paranormal Activity is particularly tricky to sequel, I think, because it used a narrative trope that’s especially troublesome for character development, and challenges basic film vocabularies. Yet it succeeded — for me, it’s the film that squeezed the most storytelling success out of the auto-chronicled narrative conceit.

My hope is that the producers of Paranormal Activity 2 spent some time thinking about why Paranormal Activity worked so well, what they did right in their use of the auto-chronicled narrative conceit, and how they can creatively and artistically build on the original to make this sequel as compelling, if not more so, than the original.

Until we get a chance to judge for ourselves, we’ll have to guess from the trailer…