Paranormal Activity’s 2026 Return Gets Official Verdict From Critics Ahead Of New 2027 Movie

Published Aug 26, 2026, 11:04 AM EDT Hannah Gearan (she/her) is has been writing for ScreenRant for over three years. Her deep cinema love traces back to age 11, when she equipped herself with a spiral-bound notebook, rated all the films she watched, and declared herself a critic. About a decade later, she received a BA from Wesleyan University, where she studied Film, Environmental Studies, and Writing. Hannah’s short film, Toxic Faucets, has screened at numerous film festivals, including the Independent Film Festival of Boston (IFFBoston). As a Movie News writer now, she draws upon her vast experience studying, making, and analyzing film as she approaches dynamic breaking stories. The critical reaction is in for the 2026 iteration of Paranormal Activity. Predominantly a movie series, the franchise kicked off in 2007 with Oren Peli's now-classic found footage B-movie. Since then, the franchise has gone on to have seven movies, with its most recent iteration being 2021's Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin. Now, a theatrical stage play version of Paranormal Activity has been made, with the show just recently premiering on Broadway. Now, the first reactions are in the Paranormal Activity Broadway play. So far, the reactions to the show are overwhelmingly positive. The play was awarded 4 stars from Time Out's Raven Snook, who called it "a cleverly executed variation on the popular horror franchise." Others also commented on the scariness of the Broadway show, such as Emlyn Travis of EW, who remarked that the show had "scares so plentiful that its audience was often screaming and applauding at the same time." Other high-profile publications like Vulture, Variety, and The Chicago Tribune have also reacted positively to Paranormal Activity. Chris Jones of the Chicago Tribune noted that the play still gave him his fair share of chills on Broadway even after he had already seen it in Chicago. Variety's Frank Rizzo echoed this praise, calling the project a "hair-raising stage experience." Reviews have been very focused on the audience's reaction to the play, such as Matt Windman's review for AMNY, which commented on a "lively Broadway crowd" that "shouted at jump scares and laughed while recovering from them." Windman and many other critics, including People's Dave Quinn, praised the play's original script, saying that playwright Levi Holloway has "written enough underneath all that theatrical trickery to keep the play from becoming a gimmick." Fangoria chimed in to praise the live show's visual effects, while Kobi Kassal of Theaterly called it "a terrifying delight." The odd one out among the initial reviews was Ron Fassler of Theater Pizzazz, who felt that the story was thin and full of "lackluster writing." Even so, Fassler felt that the "incredible design team create moments that make for scary-good fun." These Paranormal Activity Broadway reactions are a good sign for the franchise as it heads into 2027. Next year, the Ian Tuason-directed Paranormal Activity 8 is slated for a May release. Even though the Broadway counterpart may play to a different audience, its positive buzz will be a great way to get people excited about the next installment of the Paranormal Activity franchise. First Film Paranormal Activity Cast Katie Featherston, Micah Sloat, Sprague Grayden, Molly Ephraim, Chris J. Murray, Brit Shaw, Emily Bader, Roland Buck III, Dan Lippert, Henry Ayres-Brown Created by Oren Peli Latest Film Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin Spin-offs (Movies) Paranormal Activity 2: Tokyo Night, Unknown Dimension: The Story of Paranormal Activity Movie(s) Paranormal Activity, Paranormal Activity 2, Paranormal Activity 3, Paranormal Activity 4, Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones, Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension, Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin