Midnight screenings foreshadow solid weekend for 'Paranormal Activity 2'

By Sarah Sluis

A year after Paranormal Activity had audiences "demanding" the horror sensation come to their theatre, Paranormal Activity 2 will shoot into everyone's town, 3,216 to be exact. The sequel will face the same set of heightened expectations that left audiences disappointed with Blair Witch 2. FJI critic Ethan Alter was among those underwhelmed. By using an "enlarged canvas," he notes, the filmmakers took away some of the creepiness. For example, he points out that "the multiple-camera approach cuts down on the anticipatory tension created by the single point-of-view in the original." Still, the tremendous buzz and cachet of the original should drive viewers to the cinema. Indeed, the midnight screenings last night, totaling $6.3 million, breaking a record for an R-rated midnight opening. Let's see if the movie can carry that through the rest of the weekend.

After a promising opening weekend on just a few screens, Hereafter, which centers on more benevolent afterlife spirits, will expand to 2,181 theatres. Clint Eastwood's film will be the most fresh adult-oriented film in theatres this weekend, giving it an edge. Conviction, the true-life story of a woman who helped free her brother from prison, had a modest debut last week, but will expand to 55 locations.

A few specialty releases dot the schedule this weekend. WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) showcases one of its stars, Paul "Big Show" Wight, in Knucklehead (6 theatres), a "witless exercise" about a "big doofus who enters the fight game," according to Hollywood Reporter critic Frank Scheck. Critic David Noh, on the other hand, generally liked Inhale (NY/LA), "that rare thriller with a mind and purpose." The suspenseful tale centers on a father trying to buy his daughter a lung in Mexico for transplanting in the United States, a process that involves him in criminal activity with numerous unsavory people.

On Monday, we'll see if Paranormal Activity 2 was able to keep up the pace it set with midnight screenings and unseat Jackass 3D, if Clint Eastwood will have another hit with Hereafter, and if any knuckleheads checked out their eponymous comedy.