Horror Movie Character Cage Match: the Supernatural Entities of Paranormal Activity 4 and Sinister
Posted 10.12.12 by Ryan
This October, horror movie fans get not one, but two supernatural horror movies to enjoy — the upcoming sequel Paranormal Activity 4 and Sinister. While horror fans are accustomed to flesh-and-blood killers like Friday the 13th's Jason and Halloween's Michael Myers (or, maybe not, considering they don't die very easily), both Sinister and Paranormal Activity 4 represent the current shift in horror medium to the supernatural, due, in no small part, to the success of the Paranormal Activity franchise. Movie fans have already seen what can happen between a masked psychopath like Jason going up against a supernatural killer like Freddy in 2003's Freddy vs. Jason (sorry for the reminder), but what about the supernatural vs. the supernatural? With both Sinister and Paranormal Activity 4 fighting for box office dominance this month, we decided to see which of the two supernatural entities was best — Sinister's soul-eating Bagul or Paranormal Activity's demon. Prepare your vote for a Pagan cage match!
The Rules: This is a battle between two supernatural forces — who cares about rules? And, furthermore, considering they both likely hail from different realms or netherworlds or wherever they came from, who would be able to come up with a list of rules, anyway?
Bagul's Strengths: As Freddy lives in dreams, the pagan entity known as Bagul lives in images, using them as portal between his world and ours, making him pretty hard to kill. He also eats the souls of children, while killing their entire family. And why does he do this? Because he's Bagul! He's straight-up evil, he doesn't need a reason!
Bagul's Weaknesses: According to the movie's tagline, "once you see him, nothing can save you," which, on one hand, sounds limitless in power, but, on the other, reveals his weakness: you have to see him. You have to. That's why the old 8MM canisters where Bagul lives have such innocent titles like "BBQ" and "Pool Party." As long as you're able to resist watching some old movies left in an attic space of a house where a family was murdered, you've already won!
Since are less people out there that have seen Bagul in action while Paranormal's demon already has a franchise, here's a brief red band clip from Sinister. We have to issue a warning, however. Even though the entirety of the clip is only Ethan Hawke watching some of Bagul's handiwork in a home movie, the clip is potentially NSFW.
Demon's Strengths: The nameless demon that haunts the Paranormal Activity franchise seems to be able to do whatever he wants: turns on the TV late at night, messes with the chandelier, possesses a human being so they stand over someone else while they sleep for hours at a time, and steals infants. Not to spoil anything, but the demon has been keeping human form of late, but that hasn't had any effect on its physical strength, which is pretty tremendous.
Demon's weaknesses: Presumably centuries old, what's with the lack of a name? Has nothing come up? Maybe if he didn't have to forcibly make friends, he might get a nickname or two. Speaking of, the demon is very possessive, reflected in the way he's been so particular with Katie (Katie Featherston) and her family. In the fourth installment, the demon seemingly goes on the road to torment a whole new family, which may mean that he's opening up a bit to new experiences, including, according to the latest trailer, the XBOX Kinect. And what does that mean? Dude's getting soft.
In all fairness, we've shown a clip of Bagul's handiwork, so what about the Paranormal Activity demon? Luckily, a new clip from Paranormal Activity 4 has just arrived online, which shows the demon in the middle of messing with a brand new suburbanite.
Images courtesy of Paramount Pictures and Summit Entertainment
Next Showing: Sinister opens on October 12;
Paranormal Activity 4 opens October 19