FAQ

When 18-year-old Jesse Arista (Andrew Jacobs) sees schoolmate Oscar Lopez (Carlos Pratts) running from the apartment of neighbor Ana Sanchez (Gloria Sandoval), whom everyone says is a bruja (witch), Jesse and his friends—Hector Estrella (Jorge Diaz) and Marisol Vargas (Gabrielle Walsh)—decide to investigate by snooping around Ana's apartment, filming it all on Jesse's camera.

The Marked Ones is a spinoff film in the Paranormal Activity series, preceded by Paranormal Activity (2007) (2007), Paranormal Activity 2 (2010) (2010), Paranormal Activity 3 (2011) (2011), and Paranormal Activity 4 (2012) (2012) and followed by Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension (2015) (2015). It is considered a "spinoff" because it does not deal directly with the characters from the first four movies. The screenplay was written by American film-maker Christopher Landon, who also wrote the screenplays for Paranormal Activity 2, 3, and 4.

Mostly through references to characters from the first four movies. For examples: (1) when Jesse and Hector are snooping around Ana's apartment, they find a videotape labeled "Katie and Kristi 1988", possibly one of the videotapes that disappeared in a previous film; (2) when Jesse goes looking for Chavo (his dog), he sees Katie and Kristi as young children; (3) Hector and Marisol consult with Kristi's stepdaughter Ali Rey (Molly Ephraim) introduced in Paranormal Activity 2; and (4) the ending of The Marked Ones links to the end of Paranormal Activity.

It's explained in the journal that Jesse and Hector took from Ana's apartment. There are doors through which they can travel through time, but they can only go to "unholy places".

Ana was performing the ritual that 'marks' her firstborn child. There is also the suggestion that prior to the marking, the girl was being raped. However, no further information is given as to the rapist.

At this point in the series, no explanation has been given. The word also appeared in Paranormal Activity 2 on the basement door, again with no explanation. In Latin "meus" means "my", but it's also been suggested that it could be read "me-us", two words—one of which indicating a plurality of individuals—much like a story in the Bible, when a demon spirit identifies itself as "Legion, for we are many."

As with Paranormal Activity 1 through 4, there is a longer unrated version of The Marked Ones available for home video. The viewer gets to see almost 17 more minutes on Blu-ray disc.