Halloween may be over, but if you desperately need to get your supernatural fix and it felt a little too sacrilegious to dress up or get a good scare on a Sunday, then “Paranormal Activity 2” is waiting for you. Prepare your nerves for a sequel scarier than the first film, with some stellar acting and a plot that’ll keep you guessing until the abrupt end (OK, there are some rather predictable moments, but it’s still a good spooker).

Baby, Hunter (played by both William Juan Prieto and Jackson Xenia Prieto) experiences supernatural happenings in horror film, “Paranormal Activity 2”. (photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures)

In the last film, we followed the story of Katie (Katie Featherston) and Micah (Micah Sloat) as they came in contact with an unfriendly paranormal presence that would make Casper ashamed to be associated with it. The sequel takes us out of the suburbs of San Diego and into the suburbs of Carlsbad (so, not that far), as Katie’s sister, Kristi (Sprague Grayden), has a very similar experience with another (or the same?) pesky non-corporeal presence that just doesn’t seem to like the lovely middle-class people of Southern California.

More than doubling the first film’s cast, Kristi’s husband, Dan (Brian Boland), and his daughter, Ali (Molly Ephraim) and their dog, Abby, find that their lives aren’t as repetitive as suburban architecture once newly born baby, Hunter (played by both William Juan Prieto and Jackson Xenia Prieto), enters the family. It seems the kid has a secret admirer who doesn’t mind the cameras that follow around his (or her or its) shadow.

A burglary leads Dan to install six cameras around the house. Add a handheld camera used by Ali, on her quest to make first contact with the beyond, and Dan with a flashlight once (you might want to close your eyes during that scene), and we now have all the amateur footage necessary for a thrilling mockumentory with all the viral thrills. Maybe the YouTube generation should take a break from filming everything, and let those pesky ghosts go away, rather than feeding their ego. Now we have 24-hour surveillance of all the happenings, from the pool cleaner oddly floating out of the water to several more disturbing events.

“Paranormal Activity 2” isn’t a stand-alone horror sequel, but a prequel that provides some unique background on the events of part one. Usually, such a move cheapens the open-ended meaning of the original film, like it did in “Saw III”, but the filmmaking for “Paranormal” is well crafted in the hands of a lesser known but still seasoned director, Tod Williams, and screenwriters, Michael R. Perry and Christopher B. Landon. The new film team may not pack the more “authentic” experience of rookie filmmakers that made the first film possible without the backing a major studio, but they adapt well to the vision established by the original cinematic underdog.

“Paranormal Activity” may be a hard film to beat, what with the $15,000 budget and almost $200 million in box office profits, but the sequel, with its $3 million budget (still a fraction of a blockbuster budget like say “Harry Potter” films with $175 million to spend), maintains the spirit of part one. There’s no replication of the first film’s gags, we observe several jarring jump moments and subtle use of special effects. Don’t fret: this isn’t like the sequel to “The Blair Witch Project”; nothing about the first film is ruined by a half-cocked second effort. Continuing the established story is key and the film never strays.

It’s hard to find an example of an action film in the last few years that hasn’t been structured as the start of a franchise, but before blockbusters began milking any film premise for all its fiscal worth, horror films took the concept of the sequel to new (mostly shameless) heights. Taking Jason into outer space; pitting Jason and Freddy against each other; Michael Myers killing people on a reality TV show set; remakes that provide scene-by-scene duplication; or the mere audacity of creating more than six films in a series without wondering if the concept’s been exhausted. The divide between art and business is rarely as easy to see, yet “Paranormal Activity 2” proves that a sequel (or prequel) can actually be enjoyable, compelling and add new ideas to the established universe.

Trust me on this one, “Paranormal Activity 2” is a pretty jarring experience. Don’t worry, the stationary cameras allow the film a little more grounding (literally, since we don’t have to overly concentrate when the hand cam shakes), though some handheld moments are quite fantastic as they create a claustrophobia that doesn’t let up. Just don’t be alone afterwards…you might just find yourself running up the stairs as fast as possible to hide under your covers.