Scream 3 Reviewed by Christian Pyle Directed by Wes Craven Written by Ehren Kruger Starring David Arquette, Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox Arquette, Patrick Dempsey, and Parker Posey Grade: D+
In my review of "The Spy Who Shagged Me," I postulated an unbreakable law of film physics: Every time a sequel is as good as or better than the previous film in the series, it is followed by a third movie that is a bore. The cause is probably complacency; a studio sighs with relief when Part 2 lives up to expectations and figures Part 3 is a sure thing. "Scream 3" provides the latest proof of this rule.
In Los Angeles production has begun on "Stab 3: Return to Woodsboro," the most recent installment in the series of movies inspired by the murders surrounding Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell). However, life soon starts imitating art, and "Stab" cast members turn up stabbed. Smelling yet another book deal, Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox Arquette) comes to the set to investigate and finds her ex-boyfriend Dewey Riley (David Arquette) acting as a technical consultant and getting chummy with Jennifer (Parker Posey), the actress playing Gale in "Stab 3." Elsewhere, our heroine Sidney is living in hiding under an assumed name . . . until she gets a phone call from a familiar evil voice.
The late Randy Meeks (Jamie Kennedy) makes a surprise guest appearance via video to explain the rules of a trilogy. He notes the third chapter in a trilogy has an overabundance of exposition and a huge backstory to contend with. Indeed, "Scream 3" tries to link its murders back to the one that started it all, the murder of Sidney's mother Maureen before the beginning of the original "Scream." At the scene of each murder in "Scream 3," the killer leaves a photo of Sidney's mother Maureen as a teenager in Hollywood and even includes a note claiming to be her real killer. To find out who the killer is, our intrepid investigators have to uncover what happened during Maureen's missing years when she was a starlet appearing in low-budget horror films. (Even with that little information, you can probably already guess what the killer's relationship to Sidney is).
Unlike its predecessors, "Scream 3" doesn't have the guts to even suggest that the central characters might be the killer. The characters we do suspect are all undeveloped, so that by the end we don't even care who the killer is. The jaded detective (Patrick Dempsey)? The kinky producer (Lance Henriksen)? The driven young director (Scott Foley)? The ingenue (Emily Mortimer)? The character who turns out to be the killer seems to be selected at random. Wes Craven supposedly filmed three different endings to keep the real one a secret, so it's quite possible the one in the final cut was randomly chosen.
The series' trademark references to other horror films have become trite and obvious. Possibly it's the absence of screenwriter Kevin Williamson, who penned the first two, or maybe it's that the hip ironic stance eventually consumes itself and a series that parodies film cliches eventually becomes a cliche. I groaned as an attack on Sidney from the first "Scream" was repeated moment-for-moment in the Hollywood set of her home. At some point, referencing becomes just a means to cover up a poverty of new ideas.
"Scream 3" also continues the tradition of having an eclectic set of cameos and familiar faces in small roles. Look for Jenny McCarthy, Carrie Fisher, Patrick Warburton (Puddy from "Seinfeld"), Roger Corman, and Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith (as Jay and Silent Bob) to walk through at some point. All these bit players put forth more effort than the series' returning stars, who are probably saving their energy for the long post-"Scream" job search.
Another prediction I made in a previous review has come to pass: more movies are copying "The Blair Witch Project"'s web strategy. "Scream 3" has three official websites that (wink, wink) pretend that the events of the movie are real and provide additional backstory information not covered in the movie. The Sunrise Studios site (scream3.com) has trailers for other Sunrise releases as well as the "latest 'Stab 3' news." There's also a Gail Weathers official site (galeweathers.com) and a Sunrise Sucks site that has more "Stab" scandals the studio wants to cover up (sunrisesucks.com).
Craven and company promise that this is the last installment in the "Scream" series. While I hope that's true, I don't hold out much hope-horror movie series are even harder to kill than their monsters. There's a "Halloween H2K" in the works, even though Michael Myers was beheaded in "H20," and a "Freddy vs. Jason" has been talked about for awhile, despite the fact that both characters were "killed off." There's bound to be a "Scream 4" someday, even if it starts over with a new set of movie-star wannabes.
Bottom Line: They should have called this one "Yawn."
© 1999 Christian L. Pyle
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