The story revolves around Shanaya (Bipasha Basu), an actress at the height of her success. She gets offered the best roles and wins all the awards she is nominated for. In addition, she also has a passionate affair with a handsome director named Aditya (Emraan Hashmi). This all ends when a younger actress, Sanjana (Esha Gupta) entered the film industry. In place of Shanaya, Sanjana comes into spotlight and begins to snatch away her awards. Suddenly, Shanaya seems forgotten and everybody only wants to work with Sanjana. Soon enough, Shanaya sees her career fading away and her envy slowly becomes craziness. She begins to turn to black magic and makes it her goal in life to destroy Sanjana's career and make her the pain of loss.

She seeks help of her uncle sonu (Sunil Dhariwal), a tantrik who helps her to practice black magic and calls upon an evil entity, Tara Dutt (Manish Choudhary). She asks him to make Sanjana's life a living hell. Tara agrees to help haunt and torture Sanjana until she becomes suicidal. He asks Shanaya to give her a black poison through a person she trusts. Shanaya seduces Aditya to do it for her and whenever he feels guilty, she makes him accept again. Aditya, whose sympathy for Sanjana has turned into love, leaves Shanaya and refuses to listen her any more. Now Shanaya must work on her own to defeat the power of love.

Somehow, to try to end Aditya and Sanjana's love triangle, Shanaya hatches a plan by befriending Sanjana in order to poison her which Aditya gets suspicious about. At a movie premiere, Shanaya reveals that she actually hid the poison in the chocolate basket she gave to Sanjana earlier. In the bathroom, Sanjana is attacked by a swarm of moths that cause her to strip naked of her dress and run back into the party, thus getting exposed by the paparazzi. Her career is ultimately ruined as the public wrongly believed this to be a deliberate publicity stunt of hers. Aditya takes her to the Hospital and finds out that Shanaya was behind this. In rage, Aditya visits Shanaya's house and damages her things, taking away the last bit of the poisonous water. Agitated, Shanaya seeks Tara Dutt's help again, wanting to kill Sanjana. Tara Dutt tells Shanaya that life and death are in God's hands and that to fight God he'll need her life force. He tells Shanaya that she has to have sex with him to enable Tara to become powerful, to which Shanaya agrees. At the hospital, with the help of the doctor and a saint, Aditya goes into the spirit world to fight Tara Dutt, defeating him and rescuing Sanjana's soul. Back in the real world, Shanaya suffers damage as a result of the fight between Tara Dutt and Aditya and attempts to kill Aditya and Sanjana, only to meet failure. Aditya protects Sanjana from the defeated Shanaya who vows that she will remain a star and commits suicide by pouring acid on her head causing her skin to melt to death. Later, the media puts Sanjana off the hook as they conclude her 'publicity stunt' was a result of a nervous breakdown she had due to a lot of stress. However Aditya turns off the TV, not bothering on that, and focuses more on spending his time with Sanjana.

• Bipasha Basu as Shanaya Shekhar
• Emraan Hashmi as Aditya Arora
• Esha Gupta as Sanjana Krishna
• Manish Choudhary as Tara Dutt (Ghost)
• Sunil Dhariwal as Sonu
• Mohan Kapoor as Doctor
• Jagat Rawat as Tantrik

Casting

The original choice for the female lead of the film was Jacqueline Fernandez, but she had later dropped out due to not wanting to establish herself as a Bollywood sex symbol, as she was uncomfortable with a scene where cockroaches attack her and she had to be topless in front of 300 people. Fernandez was later replaced with Jannat 2 debutant, Esha Gupta. Bipasha Basu(main female lead and antagonist) will be playing the role of an actress who is a "prisoner of fame". Actor Dino Morea and actress Kangana Ranaut, who were a part of Raaz and Raaz - The Mystery Continues respectively are not a part of the film.Emraan Hashmi will be playing the male lead.

Filming

The film began shooting on 29 January 2012, director Vikram Bhatt explained how confident he is that the film should be completed sometime in Summer 2012 and that Raaz 3 is amongst his most important films.

Trailer launch

The Raaz 3 trailer was originally scheduled to be attached with the prints of Rohit Shetty's Bol Bachchan on 6 July 2012. However, it was delayed multiple times due to censoring. The theatrical trailer was officially launched on 30 July 2012 for the media, as confirmed by actress Bipasha Basu. Despite being widely speculated that it would be released to the public also, this was proven false. Later, the theatrical trailer was unveiled for the public as it was released online a day later on 31 July 2012. The theatrical trailer will also be in theatres on 3 August 2012 with Pooja Bhatt's Jism 2, as they are both under the Vishesh Films banner.

Marketing

Raaz 3 was promoted on the Sony TV show C.I.D. Bipasha Basu and Esha Gupta promoted the film by making an appearance on a special episode of CID, which aired on 2 September 2012.

Although, the film was originally planned to release on 31 August 2012 alongside Barfi! and Joker, it was later delayed to avoid clashing with any other big film. Raaz 3 was banned for release in UAE, although is being kept under review for the adult content included in the film.

Films music is composed by Jeet Ganguly & Rashid Khan while lyrics are penned by Rashid Khan, Sanjay Masoomm, Kumaar. Although "Deewana Kar Raha Hai" song is credited to Rashid Khan, the music is copied from "Ana Law Azeto" song by Egyptian singer Mohamed Hamaki.

Raaz 3D released in India and overseas on 7 September 2012. Raaz 3D is India's second-ever 3D horror movie. The movie released in stereoscopic 3D, Imax 3D and 3D worldwide. There are more 3D prints of the movie than its 2D version. Raaz 3D is the biggest release for an Emraan Hashmi film as it released on over 2000 screens in India, including in its 3D format. This movie is Emraan Hashmi's first ever 3D movie. The movie received an Adult Certificate from the Censor Board of India without any cuts.

Critical reception

The movie receive