Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin

By 2021, the "found footage" well wasn’t just dry; it was a cracked, dusty basin that most of us had stopped visiting. The genre that Paranormal Activity helped mainstream back in 2009 had become a relic of the DVD-bin era, replaced by the "elevated horror" of A24 and the neon-soaked slashers of the late 2010s. Yet, there we were, mid-pandemic, watching Paramount try to jumpstart its heart by sending a documentary crew to a secluded Amish farm. It was a move that felt less like a creative "rebirth" and more like a corporate mandate to beef up a burgeoning streaming service.

I actually watched this for the first time while attempting to assemble a flat-pack IKEA nightstand. I missed one of the big jump scares because I was swearing at a particularly stubborn wooden dowel, but honestly, the sound of my own frustration was probably more frightening than anything happening on the screen for the first forty minutes.

A Departure from the Toby-Verse

The most striking thing about Next of Kin is that it barely feels like a Paranormal Activity movie. Gone are the suburban hallways, the oscillating fans, and the invisible entity named Toby who spent several films rearranging kitchen furniture. Instead, writer Christopher Landon (who essentially became the architect of the PA franchise after writing parts 2 through 4 and directing The Marked Ones) pivots toward folk horror.

We follow Emily Bader as Margot, a young woman who discovers she has biological relatives in a secluded Amish community. She heads out there with a small film crew, including the comedic relief Dale, played by Dan Lippert, to document her homecoming. Emily Bader does a lot of heavy lifting here; she’s empathetic and grounded, which is a necessity when the plot eventually asks her to climb down a hole into a cavern that looks like it was raided from a Spirit Halloween clearance aisle.

The shift to an Amish setting was a smart play for the "streaming era." It allows for a natural isolation that modern technology usually ruins. You can't just call an Uber when your hosts start acting like they’re in a low-rent version of The Vvitch. However, by ditching the established lore of the previous six films, Next of Kin ends up feeling like a generic horror script that had the Paranormal Activity brand slapped on it at the last minute for name recognition.

Found Footage with a Hollywood Budget

The direction by William Eubank (who directed the underrated, underwater creature feature Underwater) brings a much slicker visual language to the table than we’re used to seeing in this franchise. This is "Found Footage 2.0." The characters are using high-end rigs, GoPros, and even drones. It results in some genuinely beautiful shots of the snowy landscape and the stark, timber-framed architecture of the farm.

But here’s my gripe: Eubank introduces slow-motion into found footage. I’m sorry, but who is editing this? If this is supposed to be "raw footage" recovered after a tragedy, why are there artistic 120-frames-per-second shots of a character falling? It’s a stylistic choice that completely breaks the immersion. It looks great, sure, but it undermines the very "realism" that found footage is built on. It’s a classic example of a director being too talented for the limitations of the sub-genre.

Despite the polish, the scares often rely on the same tired tropes. You’ve got the "creepy kid" (played with the right amount of blank-stare eeriness by Alexa Shae Niziak), the "sudden loud noise," and the "person standing in a dark doorway." It’s a "Best Of" compilation of horror clichés that feels particularly safe compared to the more daring horror being released in the 2020s.

The Pandemic Production Reality

If you look closely, you can see the fingerprints of the COVID-19 production era all over this. The cast is small, the location is isolated, and the "community" feels a bit sparser than a real Amish village probably would. It was one of the first major franchise films to skip a theatrical release entirely in favor of Paramount+, a move that signaled the definitive shift in how studios view horror as "content" to drive subscriptions rather than "events" to drive box office.

There’s some interesting trivia buried in the barn, though. The film was actually shot in Buffalo, New York, during a legitimate winter, which explains why the actors look genuinely miserable in the outdoor scenes. Also, Dan Lippert, who plays the cameraman Dale, is a well-known improviser (from Big Grande and Comedy Bang! Bang!), and you can tell he’s being given a long leash to keep the energy up. His performance is probably the most "human" thing in the movie, providing a relatable "Why are we still here?" perspective that the audience is definitely feeling by the hour mark.

The third act finally goes for broke, leaning into creature design and a more traditional "run for your life" finale. While the monster (credited to Kyli Zion) is decent enough, the CGI used for some of the more chaotic moments feels a bit rushed—likely a byproduct of that streaming-service budget and the quick turnaround required for a late-October release.

In the grand scheme of the Paranormal Activity Collection, Next of Kin is a weird outlier. It’s better made than the later, lazier sequels, but it lacks the soul and the "What was that noise?" tension of the original. It’s a perfectly functional Friday night watch if you’ve run out of episodes of Dateline, but it doesn’t do enough to justify its existence as a franchise revival. It’s essentially 'Midsommar' with GoPros and fewer flower crowns, providing a few decent jumps but failing to leave a lasting mark on your psyche—or even your afternoon.