- Directed by William Eubank
- Written by Christopher Landon, Oren Peli
- Stars Emily Bader, Roland Buck III, Dan Lippert, Jaye Ayres-Brown
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 38 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PENg4SbUAN0
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This was so unconnected to the other Paranormal Activity movies that it could have been a completely standalone movie. It’s still found footage with lots of things happening in the dark. It’s not too bad as we figure out more and more of what’s going on as things get worse and worse. It’s actually more entertaining than some of the previous sequels that were directly connected to the first movie.
Spoilery Synopsis
Margot is waiting to meet her first biological relative, Samuel. She got Chris there recording everything for a documentary. They talk about him “leaving the community.” Samuel and his family are Amish, and he’s out on his break. She has footage of her mother abandoning her at a hospital.
Margot, Chris, and Dale all fly to Amish country with Samuel and drive past horses and buggies through farm territory as it snows heavily. There’s no phone service, so they couldn’t phone ahead and tell her “family” that she’s coming. This doesn’t go over well, so they all wind up at a motel for the night.
The family relents and they all go back to the isolated farmhouse where Samuel and Margot’s family live. Old Jacob says they can stay there for a few days. At 2 a.m. they spot a bunch of people walking into the forest.
In the morning, the newcomers aren’t sure how to act around the Amish. Samuel tells them to avoid the woods, there are bears here. He shows them around the farm, and Margot gets to “experience the pigs.” No one wants to talk about Margot’s mother, who got pregnant by an outsider. For the most part, it’s all very quaint. No one has a phone to distract them, or electricity or any modern conveniences.
Chris goes outside at night to run the generator, which they use to recharge the batteries in their lights, computers, and cameras. He runs into a little boy sleepwalking. The next day, Dale gets an Amish haircut and outfit. At night, Margot hears someone stomping around up in the attic. She goes up there to investigate and finds a can containing letters from her mother. She also finds a teeny little door with a secret room on the other side. When she comes out, she hides under the bed and someone sits on it, but there’s no one really there.
Margot tells Chris and Dale what she experienced the next day. They interview Jacob on camera about Sarah, Margot’s mother. She grew up and became darker, then she got pregnant from a boy in town. Eventually, Sarah left the group. Margot shows him the letter she found, and he explains it all.
Dale sends up a drone and sees a neat-looking church building that the trio wants to explore way out in the woods. “This far, no further” is written on the door in German. Before they can pick the lock, Jacob shows up and tells them they can’t go in. That night, they go snooping around the barn and watch the men cut a two-headed sheep from its mother. “It’s starting to spread,” an old woman says to Jacob.
Margot has many questions for Samuel in the morning, and he regrets bringing her here; she’s being too inquisitive. Margot decides that the Amish are hiding something.
Margot and Chris pick the lock on the old church and go inside. They find a shrine to Asmodeus inside. On the floor is written “The young and the weak will suffer first,” “Lest sacrifices be made,” and other cheery things. Then they find a trap door and check that out. There’s a bottomless well underneath. There’s also a harness, pulley, and chain, and Margot wants to go down there. There’s a room at the bottom, She hears some weird noises, but then Chris pulls her back up.
Margot goes into Jacob’s room and finds a whole computer setup there, and it’s full of information about… her. She comes to the conclusion that Samuel left the community specifically to lure her here. She wants to leave, but the battery in the van is dead.
That night, Margot wakes up in the middle of the night to hear stomping coming from the room above. Chris and Dale won’t wake up. Something grabs her from behind.
In the morning, Margot is in a daze, and she’s covered in blood. Jacob says it’s an unusually severe menstrual cycle. Dale and Chris flag down the mail truck for a ride to town. The mail guy says that Jacob’s group aren’t Amish. Why would they pretend to be Amish? At the car parts store, they look up Asmodeus, and come to the conclusion that Jacob’s group are devil worshippers, or at least a demon. He’s trapped inside women’s bodies.
When the two men return to the farm, Margot is nowhere to be found. They hear the church bell ringing and run through the woods to get there. They hear Margot down in the hole, screaming. Jacob tells them, “Her body is the only thing that can hold the demon. If you set it free, it’ll kill every last one of us.” Chris smacks Jacob, knocking him down into the pit. Chris uses the winch to go down himself.
Chris finds an old woman doing some kind of ritual over Margot. Some kind of monster gets the old woman and chases them through the tunnels. Dale pulls Margot back up the chute, and when it’s Chris’s turn the creature starts crawling up behind him.
The three run out through the snowstorm, and the creature kills Dale. Chris and Margot hide in the barn. There is a great deal of hide-and-seek in the barn as the creature chases them around. It eventually kills Chris as well. Margot calls the creature, “Sarah.” Yes, that thing is what’s left of her mother. She kicks it through a hole in the floor where it lands on equipment that kills it dead. But wait, Chris isn’t dead, just wounded.
They run to the van but then remember that Dale had the keys. They go back out to Dale’s body. There’s all kinds of mayhem going on at the farm as Asmodeus does, in fact, kill them all, as promised. Everyone is going crazy killing themselves and each other. They get the keys and get back to the van, running over several maniacal people on the way to the road.
The police arrive at the farm some time later and find a bunch of bodies. They find Samuel, who makes the cops shoot each other with his mind control. Samuel then takes the police car and drives away…
Commentary
This was obviously filmed during Covid, as everyone’s wearing masks and talking about getting tested, at least until they get to Amish country. Do they really sell Amish-style dresses at Wal-Mart?
Many horror films require a suspension of disbelief, but this takes the cake. Go into a prohibited church, move the altar, and then lower yourself into a bottomless pit using ancient equipment? What could possibly go wrong, even leaving the supernatural out of it.
This has very little to do with the other Paranormal Activity films. There’s no security camera shots, no subtle did-it-move-or-not scenes, and no reference to previous films that we noticed. This could have been named just about anything else– and might have been better for it. There aren’t even any ghosts here, actually, since Asmodeus is some kind of demon monster.
It’s actually not bad, but it’s absolutely got nothing to do with the Paranormal Activity series.