(MOVIE REVIEW) Paranormal Activity 3 delivers on the scares, but fails on story

Have you ever gone to a new restaurant and ended up having a really good dinner that just hit the spot? So, the natural reaction is to want to go back for seconds. So you come back again and, as if by some miracle, it somehow turns out better the second time. Then you are hooked. So, when someone recommends that you go back a third time you, without question, jump at the idea of going. You sit down, you await the main course, and then you are completely and utterly disappointed. That is how I felt by the end credits of this movie.

Plot: As a prequel to the previous two films, this movie tells the story of how Katie and Kristi (the female stars of the first two films) first came into contact with a paranormal presence.  When young Kristi begins to talk about her imaginary friend, "Toby", their mother Julie (Bittner) and mother's boyfriend Dennis (Smith) begin to wonder what is really going on with the child. When Dennis decides to set up multiple cameras to try to capture the disturbances, the young family sees more than what they bargain for. As the people and the specter play "cat and mouse", the family tries to find a way to survive the chaos. They must be careful, because some people are not always what they seem….and that can be deadly.

I love movies like this. You have a scary movie that is pretty popular, so you end up with a packed theater full of people that are sitting in a state of heightened anticipation. Every time something bumps, everyone reacts…and THAT is what makes everyone in the room jump. This movie is pretty heavy on the scares. I had a big indention in my hand from where my wife was squeezing it so hard. The thing that bothers me is that a few parts of the movie that seem to contradict the original films and paints a much different picture than what I expected. The second installment to the franchise was a masterpiece compared to this. Where the second film helped to build the story of the first movie, this film seems to contradict the original. In one of the first films, Katie mentions that things from their childhood almost “drove her mother crazy” yet in this film we see that there is no way they could come to this conclusion AFTER the events of this movie. My concern is that they have gone the route of SAW. Crank out as many as you can and forget the story line. That is a shame.

Worth the admission? Yes (lower case "y"). It’s a good scare, but I deduct points for sloppy writing, lack of story cohesion and, to be honest, a pretty poor ending.

NOTE: Another thing that REALLY makes me mad, is that you can tell that they were going to incorporate "Bloody Mary" into the story as something else that the kids contacted, but it looks like it was edited out and changed. On that same note, HALF of the previews that you have seen include footage that is not even in the movie.