SCREAM 3 *1/2 (out of four) -a review by Bill Chambers (bill@filmfreakcentral.net)
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starring Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox Arquette, David Arquette, Parker Posey screenplay by Ehren Kruger directed by Wes Craven
Miramax "disinvited" on-line media from press screenings of Scream 3. They ostensibly feared that folks like me would write spoiler-filled reviews and post them prior to the film's February 4th release date-unsound reasoning. You see, 'net critics established enough to be on any sort of VIP list are professionals-Miramax surely knows the difference between a member of The On-Line Film Critics Society (OFCS) and the type of fanboy who posts spy reports at Ain't It Cool News. No, the ‘mini major' was afraid we'd let a bigger cat out of the bag than whodunit, that Scream 3 is a dismal conclusion to the beloved (by this writer, at least) franchise.
Something smells rotten in the state of California right from the get-go: Cotton Weary (Liev Schrieber), the former lover and would-be killer of Maureen Prescott, Sidney's mother, is juggling phone calls in his luxury car. (Once considered a danger to society, Weary now hosts his own talk show, "100% Cotton", a clever, if dated, jab at American pop culture.) Of course, a new Ghostface dials him up, and, with memories of Scream's unbearably suspenseful prologue in mind, we immediately wonder, Where is the killer? The backseat? The next car? Thrilling prospects, to be sure, but actually, Ghostface is at the Weary residence, waiting for Cotton's girlfriend (Kelly Rutheford) to finishing showering. What's missing from this sequence, and indeed Scream 3's remaining frights (most disappointingly, the moment when an ingenue is forced to hide in a wardrobe room filled with Ghostface costumes, one of which might spring to life), is an elaborate and attenuated payoff.
Our other surviving regulars have become estranged. Sidney (Campbell) is living a paranoid existence of electronic gates and password-protected locks, while Dewey (Arquette) acts as technical advisor on the second sequel to Scream 2's movie-within-a-movie, "Stab 3", and Gale Weathers (Cox Arquette) headlines a gossipy news program. Murder reunites them, as knife-wielding Ghostface stalks the set of "Stab 3", imitating its sadistic screenplay-and his/her/their own personal draft climaxes with Sidney's death.
The appeal of Ghostface's villainy is that he/she/they could be your boyfriend, your classmate, your next door neighbour...or a combination of people. Scream was the first of its kind: a slasher mystery, with the guessing game not only entailing who will be next, but also who is/are the perpetrator(s) and what is/are his/her/their motive. Ironic self-reflection aside, parts one and two stand out in a crowd that includes umpteen Friday the 13th and Halloween flicks because there's at last articulate human beings behind the iconic costume. With Scream 3, the novelty of Ghostface's ever-mutating identity has worn off some, but the character remains conceptually potent.
Conceptually. The execution of Ghostface's master plan this time around is creaky, because screenwriter Ehren Kruger has invented a new mythology for the world of Sidney Prescott far afield from what we'd come to understand in Scream and Scream 2. The movie gets in the silly habit of saying "All bets are off!" in reference to the "rules" of a trilogy's third act, but there's a difference between rule breaking and cheating. With the departure of Kevin Williamson, who authored the previous Screams as well as a tidy outline for Scream 3 (that, for reasons incomprehensible to me, was ignored, save the notion of "Stab 3"), Kruger needed to be reined in tighter, and by Wes Craven.
Craven's direction of Scream 3 is lazy in most respects. How else to explain the Jay and Silent Bob cameo (the slacker duo of Kevin Smith movies), akin to seeing Mickey Mouse pop up in Mulan and more distracting than funny. It pains me to write this, but Scream 3's comedy is generally laughless, with the exception of well-timed performances by Josh Pais (as a police detective possessed of the same personality he had as a persnickety teacher in Craven's Music of the Heart), Jamie Kennedy (resurrecting film geek Randy for the sendoff he was denied in Scream 2), and Parker Posey (through sheer force of will as a B-actress).
The visuals are much weaker in part three, as well-the occasional sweeping gesture of Peter Deming's camera is a pale imitation of the stalking Steadicam Craven gave us twice before. (Aside: in the wake of Columbine, Craven toned down the violence significantly for Scream 3-why the sanctimony, when Scream and Scream 2 are still readily available on video store shelves?) Finally, Marco Beltrami's music cues the suspense too blatantly-do you recall the tense chase at the college radio station in Scream 2? It's mostly silent. Sting notes are a whole lot more effective if they spring from nowhere; here, they act as the crescendos of an incessantly nerve-jangling score.
I look at Scream 3 as coming from an alternative universe, the same place that birthed The Godfather Part III and Superman III-woefully out of synch with its prequels, Scream 3 is a nightmare instead of nightmarish, and will likely put the horror genre back in mothballs. The film unintentionally follows the unspoken rule of a trilogy to a T: ‘part three must disappoint'.
-February, 2000
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