When me and my sister first moved into our house last year, I was so excited to see that we had a loft.  In fact, the day we moved in, I told her, “The loft is mine.”  Yes, I had it all worked out.  The loft would be my little office/art studio.  I would sit up there with a little candle going and I’d write my poetry and read my books and compose my thoughts.  Whenever the real world got to be too much for my poor little head, I would go up to the loft and I would find peace and quiet.  That loft would be my sanctuary, my little world of fantasy where everything was fine.

That night, I lowered down the ladder that led up into the loft and I started to climb.  If you know how terrified I am of both heights and ladder then you’ll understand just how difficult that was for me to do.  Seriously, with each step up the ladder, my heart beat just a little faster and I could hear my own breathing growing more and more ragged.  My feet felt so heavy and I had to stop several times so I could rest on the ladder and catch my breath.  At one point, Erin came out of her room and stared at me clinging onto the 7-step ladder.

“Lisa Marie,” she asked, “what the Hell are you doing?”

“The loft will be mine!” I snapped back.

Summoning up all of my courage and determination, I forced myself to move up the remaining two steps of the ladder and popped my head up into the loft.

“YAY!” I declared.

That’s when I saw the world’s biggest, most evil-looking spider hanging about two inches from the tip of my nose.

“AGCK!” I shouted as I fell backward from the ladder and ended up falling flat on my ass on the floor below.

I haven’t been back in the loft since.  Erin’s been up there a few times and she swears to me that she’s sprayed all sorts of sprays and cleaned out all sorts of dust but I don’t care.  I may not be the smartest girl out there but I do know that when you find something really scary in a room, you lock up that and never enter it again.

I found myself thinking about that loft and the spider within earlier today while I was sitting through Paranormal Activity 3.

Paranormal Activity 3 is the latest installment in the franchise of films about dumb men who, once they discover that there’s an evil ghost stalking the women in their lives, respond by not leaving the house but instead sitting up video cameras so they can record their eventual deaths.  This time the action is set up as a prequel to the first film but essentially, it’s the exact same film that you’ve seen twice before (though, this time, the filmmakers rip-off the end of the Last Exorcism as well).

Still, as far as the Paranormal Activity franchise goes, the third is probably the best of the series, if just because Micah’s not in this installment.  Instead, Micah’s role is taken by Dennis (Christopher Nicholas Smith), who is the somewhat goofy but well-meaning stepfather of Katie and Kristi (who, of course, will eventually grow up to the focus of the first and second Paranormal Activity films).  It turns out that Dennis is something of an aspiring filmmaker and hence, it makes a little bit more sense why he insists on setting up cameras once it becomes apparent that his house is haunted.  Anyway, the movie pretty much recycles all of the shocks and scares that you expect from a Paranormal Activity film.  There’s countless shots of people sleeping, dark shadows appearing in corners, and the whole thing where one person stands perfectly still for 5 hours.  The scares are effective because, quite frankly, mysterious shadows are always going to be scary and at their rare best, the Paranormal Activity films manage to tap into that very primal, basic fear.    Unfortunately, the Paranormal Activity films also have a tendency to drag in-between scares and this third installment is no different.  That said, the film’s finale is well-done, if predictable.

However, in the end, it’s simply impossible to watch Paranormal Activity 3 and not wonder what I’ve wondered during every Paranormal Activity film: why doesn’t anyone ever just leave the damn house?  Seriously, if you think I overreacted to seeing a spider up in the loft, you should see me when I run into a ghost hanging out in the kitchen.