An unnecessary horror sequel goes through the motions on streaming

As one of the most profitable franchises in the history of cinema, one that earned over $890 million at the box office on combined production costs of just $28 million through its first six installments, there was little chance of Blumhouse’s Paranormal Activity being allowed to ride off into the sunset.

Despite yielding such high commercial returns compared to the level of investment required, Paramount decided that the seventh chapter in the found footage horror saga would be sent straight to streaming, even though it would have more than likely hit big among theatrical audiences regardless of the pandemic.

After a five-year absence, fans and casual viewers would have been hoping that Underwater director William Eubank’s Amish-inspired nail-biter Next of Kin would have dismissed the law of diminishing returns to reestablish the property as one of the genre’s true titans. Instead, we ended up getting more of the same.

A 29% Rotten Tomatoes score and 38% user rating isn’t the ideal way to relaunch a tiring series, but that hasn’t prevented Next of Kin from finding an audience on streaming. As per FlixPatrol, the film is one of the ten top titles available on iTunes in multiple countries around the world, so we might end up with an eighth Paranormal Activity once the numbers have been crunched for the October 2021 release.