For those of you who are still invested in the found footage horror film franchise (say that five times fast) ‘Paranormal Activity’, we’re here to break down how all five films tie together. Bare with us here, because things can get a little confusing.

In order to go forward, we must go back. Way back. Back in time. Lets start with ‘PA3’, which is mostly set in 1988. In this film, a young Kristi and Katie are interacting with their ‘friend’, Toby. Their mom and her boyfriend try to investigate the weird occurrences that are happening in the house by putting cameras all over the place. Ok, nothing new here. The boyfriend links a strange symbol that’s on the girls’ closet door to a witch coven that brainwashes girls into agreeing to give up their first male son to the demons they work for, aka Tobe. Most do this to gain wealth or power of some kind but we ultimately find they’re trying to raise a demon army.

Moving on to ‘PA2’ – this one focus on Kristi’s son, Hunter, and how he’s been promised to the demon Tobe for possession since he is the first male to be born since 1930’s. The girls realize that they were bothered by a demon as kids but didn’t remember specifics. After Kristi’s house is robbed of tapes of them as children and a necklace that Katie had given her, the parents decide to set up cameras for security purposes. Strange things happen (duh) and when Kristi becomes possessed/bitten, Hunter’s dad tries to send the demon over to Katie in an attempt to save Kristi and Hunter from being taken. He preforms an exorcism on Kristi and burns a photo of Katie when she’s a kid to seal the deal. Here is where PA1 comes into focus. Once this happens we see that Katie is now having strange occurrences at her house (first few minutes of PA1 shown at this time) and where her and Micah’s haunting begins. Now you’d have to have seen the first ‘PA’ to really get the significance here. At the end of ‘PA2’, we see a blood soaked Katie (just after she kills Micah in ‘PA1’) arriving to her sister’s house. She kills the father and Kristi, and kidnaps Hunter before leaving the house in her demonic vegetative state. At the end of the film it says their whereabouts are unknown.

Now moving on to ‘PA1’. This is the tale of Katie and Micah’s haunted house. Micah also sets up cameras all over the house (again, same as the other films), when they begin to have disturbances. When Katie starts to act freaky, gets a bite on her arm and hears sounds in coming from the attic, she and Micah decide to put cameras all over to document.  Micah then finds the burnt photo of Katie that was destroyed in ‘PA2’ by Hunter’s dad. Freaky. At the end of PA1, we sort of see Katie kill Micah by slamming him up against the camera (now possessed) and she wanders out the door. We then find out in ‘PA2’ that she wanders to her sister’s and brings them to their horrible ends.

Still with us here, guys? Hang in there, we’re almost done! Flashing forward to ‘PA 4’, where a young girl named Alex and her family start to have strange demonic occurrences happen in their house. They are also neighbors with Katie and ‘Robbie’, so right off the bat you know they’re doomed.  Basically Katie comes back to the witch coven (pretty much the same psycho witches in ‘PA3’) to finish the job and sacrifice Alex’s brother, whom she believes is Hunter from ‘PA2’. Things don’t end well for Alex’s family, especially when she goes to Katie’s house and sees Spanish newspapers all over the windows and is flung from her camera. We don’t really know what happens to Alex but at the end of the film, we see two Spanish men going into a shop that they believe sells witch craft type items. They get spooked when an old woman appears and states that this is only the beginning, setting up for the newest installment, ‘PA 5 – The Marked Ones’.

Now we come full circle with everything. In the newest installment, we follow Jesse and his friend Hector, and a band of misfit teens. Jesse is bitten (just like Katie and Kristi in previous films) and starts to develop strange powers and is being haunted by an unseen figure. At this point the old lady that lives below Jesse is killed and they go to investigate her abandoned apartment. They find the tapes that were stolen from ‘PA2’, the same Spanish newspapers on the walls as in ‘PA4’ (not to mention Alex is locked in a cage, but that was inconclusive), and photos of them. To make matters more creepy, he goes to investigate a noise in Anna’s apartment and is greeted by the ghost figures of Katie and Kristi when they were children (aka ‘PA3’). Once Jesse is fully possessed, he and his friends are taken back to ‘PA3’ where Katie and Kristi’s grandmother was with the other witches before they complete the ritual on the two girls.  They call this time travel, kids. They all get into a fight and one of the friends crosses over to another ‘unholy place’. That ‘unholy place’ is at the end of ‘PA1’ where Katie is screaming for Micah because she sees the time traveling friend and freaks out. In the commotion, Katie stabs Micah to death as the friend tires to leave but then is attacked by Jesse (fully demon now) and dies. Jesse and Katie then finish the job on Micah and you get to see all the gory details this time.

Well there you have it, a somewhat confusing and not at all wrapped up in a pretty bow series of events that ties all five films together. Let us know in the comments section below if we missed any similarities to each of the films that you found!

Source: Screen Rant