Scream 3

  It’s inevitable that horror franchises are going to have crappy entries, but that doesn’t necessarily ease the pain of seeing a franchise absolutely shit the bed after two near perfect outings. Alas, here we are on our countdown to Scream (2022) with the bastard child of the franchise, Scream 3.

Scream 3 was written by Ehren Kruger (The Ring) and directed by Wes Craven (Red Eye) and was released on February 4th, 2000. It was made on a budget of $40 million, made $34,713,342 upon opening, and went on to make $161,834,276 worldwide. Scream 3 received largely negative reviews upon release.

Three years after the events of Scream 2, Sidney (Neve Campbell, Wild Things) has isolated herself in a remote farmhouse. However, she is drawn out of her isolation when a masked killer begins targeting the cast of Stab 3 and she learns that the new set of killings have a connection to her mother’s previously unknown past in Hollywood.

It really is a shame that Scream 3 is such a mess because its premise really isn’t bad. Setting your movie on a Hollywood set (particularly the set of a Stab movie) does seem like the logical next step for this franchise. Unfortunately the film opts for a more general Hollywood satire rather than the specific horror satire that the previous entries went with and it’s not successful. It doesn’t help that the film plays up the “trilogy” aspect, while ignoring that trilogies aren’t all that common in the horror genre (and ultimately becomes irrelevant with the release of Scream 4 in 2011).

That could be overcome if the cast were interesting. Unfortunately the supporting cast have no personalities outside of “generic knock-offs of existing characters”, with the obvious exception of Parker Posey’s (Waiting for Guffman) Jennifer Jolie but that comes more from the brilliant performance than the writing. 

The film’s biggest issue is the outrageous backstory for Maureen Prescott (which exists with absolutely no foreshadowing in the previous films) and the character of Roman Bridger (Scott Foley, Felicity) as Sidney’s heretofore unknown half-brother (the product of a completely disgusting and unnecessary rape-backstoary) and the franchise’s worst Ghostface. It’s all, frankly, very stupid.

Fortunately, our core cast successfully comes together to create something out of nothing. The Dewey (David Arquette, Eight Legged Freaks) and Gale (Courtney Cox, Cougar Town) relationship finally gets a chance to solidify and Sidney is allowed to change the narrative surrounding her from victim to survivor. I just hate that all that happens in the worst entry.

Scream 3 has its moments, but it’s a pale imitation of what came before. The franchise deserved better from it’s “final” entry. Thank goodness for Scream 4.

Rating: 2.5 broken awards out of 5

Other Observations:

• Does the Dog Die? No!

• Harrison’s Favorite Scare: The chase in the movie set version of the Prescott house is so cool.Truly the highlight of the film.

• “My. Lawyer. Liked. That.”

• We’ve talked enough about The Bangs. There’s nothing more to be said.

• Roman really is the worst killer in the franchise.

• Sidney Prescott worked from home before it was cool.

Next Week: It’s October, and that means we’re back on Halloween month with Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers!