Metacritic reviews

The result is a breezy but chilling romp through a haunted rural farmhouse, seen through extremely high-resolution handheld camera work. Like most studio horror movies these days, it looks a lot better than it should, and slaps a bit less.

On some level, every “Paranormal Activity” film is about monsters caught on camera, but in this one the demons remain scariest when they’re sight unseen

while the action cranks up in the final half-hour, it's shot in such an incoherent manner that it renders the entire endeavor rather impotent. And by the time the film's confusing finale arrives, we're left with only one real question: "That's it?"

There are some potent shocks here, but the strongest aspect of the film is the unmistakable odor of squandered potential.

Things like a film’s cast, script or direction can keep us interested and giving a damn—but all of those elements fell flat in this installment.

Though Eubank and Landon deserve some credit for mixing up the Paranormal Activity storytelling formula, it remains clear that there’s not many scares left to milk from this franchise.

Without the franchise pull behind it, Next of Kin is a rather anonymous horror of demonic possession, competently made and with decent acting but indistinguishable from the pack, where predictability wins over personality.

Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin feels less like a chance to creatively reboot a hit franchise and more like a way to cheaply profit off any residual interest left in it.

Absent formal rigor, the “Paranormal Activity” concept doesn’t offer much else.

The “Paranormal Activity” films, to their credit, build slowly, backloading the chills in the second half. That means, to get through that first hour, the characters have to be interesting, but these self-absorbed Gen Z wannabe filmmakers are anything but.