Tense bodies, hands squeezing the sides of chairs, feet propped up to your chest, waiting on tenterhooks for the scare to come. But as hearts race and knuckles whiten on the arms of the seat—there’s the letdown.

We wanted to be scared but couldn’t be because “Paranormal Activity 3”  doesn’t have any real grit. We were first anxious as to what would happen next but after seeing it we were disappointed. Now this sequel shows viewers how the supernatural events began with two, sisters Kristi and Kati, who were also in the first two movies. The movie seems no different from the others besides the girls being recorded as children. The angle of the movie is just the same—a family that deals with the issue of having a “presence” in their home. Of course, someone is curious as to why these events are  happening and wants to help but obviously has to be punished by the great and mighty killer, an associate of the “presence.” Ah what a wonderful, unexpected thrill! Not. The viewers knew those things would happen.

Predictable is an accurate word for the movie. The setting is a two-story house monitored by two cameras one upstairs one down, for a six hour time frame. During these scenes the slow and feverish music plays right along with the screams. The music slows down and people cover their eyes. Lights flicker and the crowd goes silent. A door slams out of nowhere and people jump. Really, there isn’t much to it.

Long periods of time pass before anything interesting happens , and before it happens, we have to sit and wait until the boring music and panning of the camera goes back and forth. Interestingly enough, right after someone was frightened or did scream 10 seconds later the entire crowd was laughing.  Now whether this was from nervousness or just a lack of self-control I’m not sure, but throughout the whole film loud laughter rang in the movie section. People came to this movie to be scared, but rather than hearing screams, the most prominent sound of emotion was laughter. Seriously.

Can we have some true fear in a so called scary movie? Isn’t that what people pay to see when they watch a movie of this nature? I would think so, but although they lack fear the Paranormal Activity movies have been a hit since they first came out. So the better question is why do people continually go if the movies aren’t scary? Well, the simple point is that many go because they think it’s scary from the gripping previews. Also because the movie is a home video many may think that the events could be real. The disappointment follows when finally seeing the movie. The thrill from the previews is the exact thing the movie lacks.