Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin (2021)

The seventh entry in a franchise that refuses to stay buried, Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin attempts a fresh start with a found-footage documentary crew investigating an Amish-adjacent commune. The setting is novel enough, but the film remains a delivery system for jump scares and demonic lore. Its cast includes Roland Buck III as a co-lead and Wesley Han in support, and the film treats them as ordinary people with no comment on race or identity. We note this as a modest point in the representation column, though the film itself seems unaware of any such column existing. It is simply a horror movie with a diverse ensemble, and that is that.

The protagonist, Margot, is a woman searching for her birth mother, and the plot hinges on a demonic bloodline passed from mother to daughter. This is standard horror architecture, the kind that has powered everything from Carrie to The Conjuring. The film does not pause to theorize about gender, nor does it frame Margot's journey as a feminist thesis. She is a final girl with a camera, and the screenplay gives her little to do beyond screaming and swinging a farm tool. We grant a small measure of credit for the maternal bloodline conceit, but it is a plot device, not a manifesto.

Every other marker sits at zero, and the film seems content there. No LGBTQ+ characters appear. Race is never a subject. The commune is a cult, not a critique of capitalism. There is no climate messaging, no body positivity, no neurodivergent representation, no revisionist history, and no preachy energy of any kind. The film's only agenda is to make you flinch at a two-headed goat. We respect the honesty of that, even as we mourn the lack of anything to lecture about.