Why does every PA fan hate the 4th one?

I'm a die hard fan of the series, so I liked PA 4. It had some good suspense, a nice campy tone and a few tricks up its sleeve like the Xbox thing.

It's more story based. It focused less on scares.
To me, it wasn't that much of an issue.

3 is scariest but 4 is the best

I think by the 4th one, everyone's just frustrated that it's still the same thing and nothing is explained. It might not seem much to you, because you saw it all in one take. Imagine what it's like to wait years and then get this.

I'm a fan of the franchise and I own them all on BluRay. I'll say PA4 is the worst of them all by far for one simple reason: the storyline. Although connected, this film does not, on any real tangible level, follow well after the events of part 2. Even with the understanding that this film occurs years later, the elements don't add up and we have nothing to make any sense of it all.

In the beginning we're led to believe that Hunter would be the child that Katie is caring for, which connects all the dots without any need for backstory or explanation. Instead, we find out that this is not Hunter, at all, and that its some random kid who came out of nowhere without any explanation, making that part worse. Some knowledge of who he is could have mitigated that failure.

When we do learn which kid is actually Hunter, that makes even less sense. Katie/Toby just gave Hunter up after all the trouble involved in creating and abducting him? No way. No explanations there. No way of knowing why/how Katie lost him, or how he ended up with a new family.

Sure, as a whole, production values and such were on par with the other films. Everything is consistent there. It's the subplot (or no plot) surrounding the boys (basically the central hub around the entire franchise's premise) that causes this movie's story to fall flat on its face.

Is 4 the one that ends with her jumping out the window to about 50 posessed girls marching toward the camera doing the thriller dance?

Because it was boring. I love the first and third movie, PA2 and PA4 was boring and stupid.

I think some of the reason for rating it low is that the film didn't really explain much...it just created MORE questions that needed to be answered and starting to sound like the questions that it created may not be answered :/

I'm hoping I'm wrong but not counting on it, at the same time. I may even have to wait until DVD, thanks to the limited theater openings because it's beginning to look like the closest AMC theater that is showing it on Friday is over an hour away.