'Paranormal Activity 3' goes back to its roots (Paramount Pictures)

The film successfully drew in movie audiences with short trailers and tagline’s like “It runs in the family”. All of this seemed to give hope that all those questions left unasnwered after both films would be answered.

They were answered but not in the way that they were expected to be answered.

First, it does not show how Katie and Kristi’s family home burned down and as a matter of fact the film does not have any of the footage seen and promoted in the trailers. A genius move to keep the audience on their toes because nothing plays out like it is expected to.

It's 1988 and the same plot: family hears scary noises, family videotapes the phenomenon and finally family experiences it until it comes to an unexpected but scary end.

The film is set in 1988, going back to the roots of where the activity began. This time around it takes place in Santa Rosa, CA where Katie and Kristi live with their Mother Julie and her boyfriend Dennis.

Of course, Dennis works with film and makes wedding videos. So, naturally he is a video camera enthusiast and he is the one that begins to document the paranormal activity that is occurring in the family home.

The activity starts off slowly just like the film’s predecessors. It begins by showing the dynamics of the family and introducing Kristi’s creepy imaginary friend, ‘Toby’.

At first, Dennis uses his camera to record birthday parties and to try to make a sex tape. Instead, he discovers that something inhuman lurks in the house and begins using his cameras to capture it.

Quickly, he finds out that Kristi’s friend Toby is behind all the activity.

The activity begins to escalate from footsteps in the hallway and objects moving alone to a ghost sheet floating in the air to a young Katie being dragged out of bed and levitated in the air by the hair.

After that, the film takes a turn from scary to weird when it reveals Katie and Kristi’s family history. At the end, the film leaves the audience hanging and feeling a bit shocked of how all the events played out and how quickly they did.

The good: the camera techniques. The film incorporated different and innovative camera techniques. It used three settings to properly instill scares:the living room, Kristi and Katie’s room and the Julie and Dennis’ room. All at different angles, which made the scares more powerful. It has an authentic feel to it, which is owed to the directors and producers who perfectly captured the time. As in the other films the acting was incredible. It did not feel like these people were actors but real people. Big props to Jessica Tyler Brown, who played young Kristi for doing an excellent job and making Kristi the creepiest kid since Poltergeist's Carol Anne.

The bad:the film deviates away from the other two with all the pop-up scares. Many can argue, that what made the first two successful is how much it left up to the imagination. The previous two had an unsettling feeling to them but 'Paranormal Activity 3' took that feeling out.

The film began to unwrap in a manner that leaves a feeling of horror at the events that are occurring but 70 minutes later it all comes to an end and what is left are 14 minutes of confusion, which left the audience asking that was it?

The end plays like a bad 80’s horror movie. It shows the audience everything taking away that unsettling feeling that made the previous films a hit. It is not about what is known but what is unknown that made the previous films get under the audiences’ skin and 'Paranormal Activity 3' fails to do that by answering all the questions in the end in the most disturbing way.

'Paranormal Activity 3' makes three huge mistakes 1) taking the focus away from the demon and onto humans 2) playing out an ending reminiscent of last year’s 'The Last Exorcism' and Polanski’s 'Rosemary’s Baby', making it go from scary to just plain weird 3) it does not stick with the plot of the previous two and does not show Katie and Kristi's family home being burned down. The ending in this case makes it impossible for those events to even happen.

Besides the ending, the film is worth watching for good screams and scares despite its anti-climatic ending. 

The film still manages to bring the scary in through unique and horrifying ways.