The iTunes comic follow-up feels like either a cash grab, or a misread on the part of the makers.

On our last podcast we discussed what Paranormal Activity did right and what it could have done better. I was a fan of how it played on our fear of the unknown, and thought the vague sense of terror it created was the movie’s strongest point. Spencer, on the other hand, wanted more screen time given to the back story, suggesting that would have made it a better film, not just a string of fun scares.

Attempting to fill in some of those gaps is Paranormal Activity: The Search for Katie, an iTunes-exclusive comic that picks up where the film left off (found via io9).

Since we so recently debated whether the movie needed to elaborate on its core mythology (and the comic was only 99 cents to download), I decided to give it a look. Unfortunately, what you get for those 99 cents is flimsy and tangential instead of elucidating.

Complaining about a dollar comic may sound petulant, but at any price, one has to ask, “What does this supplemental work hope to accomplish?” If the intent was to fill out the story of the film, then 40 iPhone panels (which might equate to 10 printed pages), doesn’t offer much space to do it in. But even in this compact form, it could have elaborated on several questions the film didn’t answer. The story of Katie’s childhood trauma might have made for a strong short piece. What the two paranormal experts were doing that night, or have done in other cases like this one, would be interesting to find out. Either would expand the fiction in a way that’s germane to the movie that people saw and enjoyed.

How any rational person could interpret the popularity of this haunted-house movie into a desire for a CSI/X-Files hybrid spin-off, which is what the comic attempts to be, is simply puzzling. The story in The Search for Katie prompts more questions and introduces new characters instead of clarifying anything the movie left us wondering, and it shifts tonally from horror to supernatural noir. It also treats the events of the film like the crime that launches an investigation into something — of course — “much bigger than we thought”. Now the awesome scary movie we just saw is like the murder in an episode of Law & Order: over by the opening credits and followed by a lot of people talking about it. Oh, and there’s no actual searching for Katie either.

Essentially, it feels like either a cash grab — “Quick, this is popular, let’s find a way to rake in some micro-payments!” — or a misread on the part of the makers. You already made a popular horror movie; don’t turn it into a story of supernatural detectives tackling a demonic conspiracy. Or if you do, hold off until you have a real story to tell so fans have something more to buy into than just the hype. If from the beginning the movie had been conceived as a cool pilot episode to a new comic or TV series about demonology, it might have been genius; but then they should have put more of that element into the film. Trying to staple on extended plots after the fact just feels like exploitation.

The only save would be if future installments came included with the price, or got better and worth paying for as a real story developed. But even then, do we need future installments of a ghost chase thriller based on Paranormal Activity? Do we have to live in a world where anything that people respond to gets milked and leveraged and franchised to death and there’s no such thing as a self-contained creative work? Some people may have wanted more of the background to show up on the screen to fill out the story. Lots of people thought the film was perfectly successful at what it set out to do already.  This comic, sadly, doesn’t do much for fans in either camp.