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With a bigger budget and the pressure of building on a successful predecessor Paranormal Activity 2 tries too hard and fails to engage and scare.

The more camera angles we’re given the less time we have to focus on a particular frame and get all paranoid about what is about to happen. While the first film slowly crept up on you, the sequel is constantly try to grab your attention.

Also the amount of exposition is completely unnecessary as we don’t need to know what’s going on; that is why it is scary.

On the plus side the film has a few big scares and it fits the first quite neatly. The dog is a particular highlight.

Where this film will succeed is when watched alone at home when it’s dark outside and you’ve got the windows open. In a cinema the audience gets restless and giggling can ruin the effect.

No third film please.

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You’ve got to love autumn, good films are coming out on a regular basis. Today I’m adding three more to my watch list.

Burke and Hare
It’s going to be a pretty broad comedy with slapstick, toilet humour and comedy corpses but with this British comedy cast I can’t resist. Pegg and Stevenson reunite!

The Kids Are All Right
It’s and Oscar buzzed film with an indie feel. Two artificially inseminated children of a lesbian couple bring their biological dad into the mix.

Out of the Ashes
A documentary about the Afghan cricket team. I don’t like cricket… period.

Saw 3D
Gore and shocks, 3D and in your face. Guilty pleasure ahoy!

The Hunter limited release
A Persian language film in which a man kills some cops, then gets chased into a forest by two more cops. “They are lost in a maze, a desolate landscape, where the boundaries between the hunter and the hunted are difficult to perceive.” Blimey.

Involuntary (limited release)
A Swedish flick about people getting up to mischief.

Spiderhole (limited release)
A low budget horror featuring London student squatters as the victims. Bloody students.

This Prison Where I Live (limited release)
The Guardian says, “A brave documentary about a jailed Burmese comedian that is unfortunately stymied by the very censorship it is seeking to attack.”

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It took a while for me to settle into Kaboom with it’s “quirky” dialogue and overly boosted colours but I gradually settled into what seemed like a slightly above average sex comedy. Then it all got a bit weird and a global cult and a witch were introduced, the colours got brighter and the dialogue got quirkier.

According to the rest of the audience Kaboom is hilarious, not only the one liners got a laugh but sometimes just a scene change warranted a chuckle for no good reason. One man in front of me even did the full rocking back and forth and clapping routine twice. I think they were all plants because Kaboom is nowhere near as funny as all that.

If you’ve ever wanted to see the Thomas Dekker, Juno Temple, Haley Bennett or Roxane Mesquida naked then you’re in luck… otherwise I wouldn’t bother. It seems Mysterious Skin was a one-off bit of brilliance from Gregg Araki.

There’s a chance Kaboom was brilliantly stylised and I just didn’t get it, but more likely it’s a terrible film. Luckily there is no UK release date just yet.

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Sofia Coppola is not known for her faced paced thrillers but Somewhere really does take it to a whole new level of tedium. While the relationship between Stephen Dorff and Elle Fanning is sweet, subtle and real there is not enough meat on the film for it to be satisfying.

Coppola seems to have lost the plot, or rather simply forgotten to but one in. Her previous works are all slow paced but still do have a journey and are lyrical and beautiful in their telling. Somewhere may be well shot but seems like a mere snapshot of these characters and their story. What was on screen was good, it just needed a little bit more.

Somewhere is on general release on 4th March 2011 and I’d only go and see it if you’re in quite a mellow mood, just not so mellow that you might fall asleep.

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The Surprise Film is consistently the hottest ticket at the London Film Festival, previous years having included The Wrestler and No Country For Old Men, and after last year’s disappointment with Capitalism: A Love Story a real treat was expected last Sunday.

Somehow the internet decided that the surprise film was most likely Brighton Rock, but this was by no means guaranteed… until the opening credits rolled. What followed did not match the Coen Brothers, Aronofsky or even Michael Moore.

Brighton Rock is everything I was so pleased Submarine was not; a gritty, gangster filled period film with Helen Mirren. In theory the film followed the descent of young rogue Pinkie into organised crime and disaster, when in reality his arc ended after about twenty minutes and then failed to progress for the final hour and a half.

To say that Brighton Rock is terrible would be an exaggeration, it would make a fine addition to any ITV drama line-up. Sadly the film is simply unimpressive and a far cry from the quality you expect to be shown in what is one of the Festival’s top four events. Rather than creating huge hype, the screening felt like a trick, making people buy tickets for a film they would never have shelled out for had they known what they were getting themselves into.

After a rough start Brighton Rock does get better, though never quite finds a way of connecting with its audience and struggles to develop any character beyond their two dimensions. Considering Rowan Joffe, the writer/director, also penned The American he is responsible for more than his fair share of flops for one film festival.

Brighton Rock does not have a UK release yet, and after the backlash it has received this week it could be a good thing.

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