Paranormal Activity reaches the "spooky puritans" phase in this trailer for Next Of Kin

On a long enough timeline, most horror movie franchises set in the United States eventually come back to puritans or the Salem witch trials or olde-timey curses from Europe. After doing enough movies about some evil thing, Hollywood inevitably decides that it wants to know why something is evil, and America’s history naturally lends itself to stories about people who were unfairly persecuted… or who committed unfair persecutions. Basically, it always turns out that somebody was right, whether it’s the people accused of being witches or the ones doing the accusing. The Paranormal Activity series finally seems to have reached this milestone, which means this will probably be the last one before someone comes along with a good idea for a back-to-basics reboot (unless this one’s a huge hit and Paranormal Activity fully lives again).

Titled Paranormal Activity: Next Of Kin, this one is going straight to Paramount+ (more like Paranormount+) and it seems like it’s going to feature regular footage in addition to traditional Paranormal Activity-style found footage. The series has been touching on Ye Olde Cult stuff for a while now, with witches and evil grandmothers showing up to explain why ghosts have been targeting those sisters from the first couple movies, and it seems like this is going to go even deeper—though it’s also reportedly unrelated to the previous films, so we’ll see. Of course, that’s not to say it won’t also feature people needlessly filming their every step (but, we assume, never going back to watch the footage and see definitive proof of ghosts), because this teaser also features series staples like: Night-vision! Scary basements and attics! Crawling toward the camera before being dragged away by an unseen force! Directed by William Eubank, Paranormal Activity: Next Of Kin will be released on Paramount+ on October 29.