Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones is marketed by Paramount as a Latino spinoff for the small cost/big return$ found-footage property; as such, it comes as little surprise to see that the studio is using Día de Muertos (i.e. the Day of the Dead Mexican holiday) to promote the film. The latest Paranormal Activity movie takes place in California in 2012, a year after Nevada teen Alex (Kathryn Newton) had her terrifying encounter with demonic forces and witch covens in Paranormal Activity 4.

The "Day of the Dead" TV spot for The Marked Ones is mostly atmosphere and few-to-no plot hints, yet the previously-released U.S. and international trailers reveal that this movie does not, in fact, take place in a parallel universe relative to Paranormal Activity 1-4 (as we were originally led to believe). On the contrary, The Marked Ones takes place in the same world as its predecessors.

Moreover, the film will continue to expand the franchise's convoluted mythos, about evil supernatural forces (and their worshippers) who've been causing such a ruckus - whenever there's someone who has a portable video recording device around to document it, anyway.

Check out the new poster for The Marked Ones:

[Click for Full-Sized Version]

Paranormal Activity The Marked Ones Poster

If you listen to the Screen Rant Underground Podcast, then you already know that the SRU crew (especially, Anthony Ocasio) isn't exactly taken with the trailers for The Marked Ones; that is, even though the film seems poised to amp up the supernatural action/terror quotient a bit from the other Paranormal Activity installments (though, not so impressively as a found-footage movie like Chronicle). The Marked Ones is PA 2-4 screenwriter Christopher Landon's writing/directing debut on the franchise, so who know; maybe he has a couple of tricks up his sleeve that he'll pull out (in order to make this addition to the series a standout).

... Then again, with the movie slated to arrive during the doldrums of January - alongside other questionable found-footage horror fare like Devil's Due - it's probably best to not get your hopes up.

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Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones opens in U.S. theaters on January 3rd, 2014.