by Lars Lindahl © 2000 Lars Lindahl
"Scream 3"
Directed by Wes Craven Written by Ehren Kruger
Starring Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox Arquette , David Arquette, Parker Posey, Emily Mortimer, Jenny McCarthy, Patrick Dempsey, Scott Foley, Deon Richmond, Lance Henriksen, Matt Keeslar, Patrick Warburton, and Liev Schreiber.
Back in 1996, director Wes Craven and screenwriter Kevin Williamson teamed up to create the witty and original Scream, a scary movie that simultaneously derided the cliches of other scary movies. Four years later, a third Scream has been released, except this time without the wit, originality, or Williamson. What once was at the top of its class now has become what it was so good at mocking: a pointless, violent slasher-flick. The surviving members of the first two films find themselves being stalked again in the middle of Hollywood, where Stab 3 is being shot, a fictional sequel to the Woodsboro Murders. But the question is who's committing the crimes and why?
There is no doubt that Scream 3 is a truly scary film, the numerous scenes in which the ghost-faced killer stabs his (or her!) innocent victims were all very intense and well paced. To be honest, this certainly is one of the scariest movies of the 1990's…but was the aim to just make a scary movie or to prove a point in the process? Unlike the original Scream, and more like the second Scream, the movie only completes half of its goal. The humor, ardently attempted, just does not work (maybe because the previous movies killed off the funniest characters or maybe because new screenwriter Ehren Kruger just isn't a funny guy, we will never know). Some potentially clever cameos and a number of entertainment references were not completely developed and most of the jokes were just flat-out unfunny. The best part of the film is when Randy (Jamie Kennedy), who unfortunately does not survive the second film, leaves on videotape, the rules of a trilogy. This brief ten- minute section only reminds us how great the first film was at using other movies' clichés to tell its own jokes. Randy mentions more movies and stereotypes in his small appearance then the rest of the characters in the whole film combined.
Another fault in the script is the disastrous last ten minutes, which nearly ruin the whole movie. I spent the whole time trying to figure out who the killer was by carefully observing facial expressions and discovering hidden clues, only to find out that there is absolutely zero evidence and an unconvincing motive for this random "surprise" of a killer. They could have picked anyone else and I would have been satisfied, anyone at all. The discovery of the person behind the ghost-faced mask also leaves numerous plot holes that are never answered. Scream 3, supposedly the act in the trilogy that answers any questions and fixes any mistakes, left me more confused than any of the past films.
Remember when Scream was about a couple of guys hanging around a video store, with nothing to do except talk about the movies? It was so simple, yet so perfect.
**1/2 (out of four)
Lars Attacks! http://www.angelfire.com/ny3/larsattacks
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews