SCREAM 3 (2000) / ** 1/2
Directed by Wes Craven. Screenplay by Kevin Williamson and Ehren Kruger. Starring David Arquette, Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox Arquette. Running time: 116 minutes. Rated R. Reviewed on February 27th, 2000.
By SHANNON PATRICK SULLIVAN
By the mid-Nineties, the slasher movie was all but dead, the heyday of the "Friday the Thirteenth" and "Nightmare on Elm Street" franchises just a distant memory. Then, in 1996, came "Scream". Perhaps not since "Star Wars" has a single film so revolutionized a genre. "Scream" was not just funny and scary and inventive, did not just boast an eager young cast. It exuded a hip self-awareness which both poked fun at and paid homage to its bloody legacy.
"Scream" was followed by a slew of imitators, including a sequel of its own. But in addition to some questionable casting choices, "Scream 2" (1997) failed by falling into some of the very pitfalls it laughed at, hewing too closely to the original.
Now comes "Scream 3", the (allegedly) last of the trilogy. This time around, series creator Kevin Williamson decided to draft only a story outline, handing script duties over to Ehren Kruger. Fortunately, my qualms about how this would affect the film's quality proved unfounded. While this final "Scream" doesn't match the original for ingenuity and suspense, it is better than "Scream 2", and is a good film in its own right.
In the fictional reality of the "Scream" series, the events of the first two films -- the serial killings perpetrated by madmen masquerading as "Ghostface" -- have been depicted in a pair of horror movies titled "Stab". Despite the lack of further Ghostface murders to latch onto, production is under way on the third "Stab" installment. Amongst the cast is Jennifer Jolie (Parker Posey), portraying reporter Gale Weathers. Not so ironically, Jennifer's boyfriend and bodyguard is Dewey Riley (David Arquette), the "real" Gale Weathers' former lover and a survivor of the previous murder sprees.
Start-up on "Stab 3", however, has the (unintended?) side effect of inciting a new series of Ghostface slayings, and this time the victims are "Stab" castmembers. The film is shut down -- to the dismay of hot young director Roman Bridger (Scott Foley) -- but the body count continues to rise. At a loss, police detective Mark Kincaid (Patrick Dempsey) asks the real Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox Arquette) to come to Hollywood to assist him. But it soon becomes clear that Ghostface's real target is once again Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), living in isolation somewhere in California. At the same time, Sidney begins having disturbing dreams about her mother Maureen (Linda McCree), the very first Ghostface victim.
"Scream 3" shares many similarities with its predecessors, from the opening "shock murder" to the utter impossibility of actually guessing who Ghostface is this time around. As such, it would be easy to write it off as just another clone of the original, and nothing more. But unlike "Scream 2", "Scream 3" does things a little differently. In particular, Williamson and Kruger take advantage of the Hollywood setting to comment not just on the nature of "trilogies" (perhaps realizing that there simply isn't much to say: movie trilogies are rare, and horror trilogies rarer still) but on thriller filmmaking in general.
The movie is also peppered with cameos which are as hilarious as they are unexpected. There are a number of clever in-jokes for the observant: the "Stab" actors, for example, are named after the current crop of young stars, like Freddie Prinze and Angelina Jolie. And some of the unpopular decisions of the previous movies are addressed, as with "Stab" actor Tyson Fox (Deon Richmond), whose character Ricky is an intentionally transparent replacement for Randy (Jamie Kennedy), killed off in the second "Scream"/"Stab" installment.
Returning stars Campbell, Arquette and Cox slip back into their roles comfortably. Unlike the first two movies, though, it is the latter pair who take the spotlight for much of "Scream 3". They do so ably, hamstrung only by a break-up at the start of the film which is never properly motivated and comes across as a very obvious plot device. Like any movie dominated by young actors, the rest of the cast is uneven. Posey does a great job aping Gale Weathers (and hence Cox) and Jenny McCarthy, as Sarah Darling, seems to have fun sending up her own public image. But Scott Foley is wooden as Roman, seemingly able to sustain only a single emotion per scene, and Emily Mortimer, who plays acting ingenue Angelina Tyler, never really finds her groove.
As usual, "Scream 3" builds up the suspense deftly, weaving the mystery of Maureen Prescott's past with the usual Ghostface murders. The deaths are, for the most part, satisfactorily inventive (one sequence involving a fax machine is particularly fun) and the identities of some victims are sure to come as a surprise. It is unfortunate, though, that the movie doesn't abide by its own criticism of the genre and repeatedly dumbs down its characters to ensure they are in a position to be attacked. This is particularly galling when "Scream" veterans like Dewey and Gale start splitting up needlessly.
But these things are, in some ways, to be expected; while it would be nice to see a horror film rise above such cliches, it is hard to fault "Scream 3" for staying true to its roots. More disappointing is the movie's "surprise ending", which is not much of a surprise at all to anyone with a working knowledge of common literary twists. Indeed, after guessing the direction in which "Scream 3" was heading, I found myself hoping that I would be completely blindsided, as with the ingenious revelation of the second murderer in "Scream".
Alas, it was not to be: the movie ends in a manner which is neither without merit nor entirely satisfactory. Walking out of the theatre, I found myself pleased with the decision to make this the last "Scream". The trilogy has been good (sometimes even great), but I think it has played itself out. It's time for the Ghostface costume to go on the shelf next to Jason's hockey mask and Freddie's clawed glove, and the screaming to end once and for all.
Copyright © 2000 Shannon Patrick Sullivan. Archived at http://www.physics.mun.ca/~sps/movies/Scream3.html
-- _______________________________________________________________________ / Shannon Patrick Sullivan | "We are all in the gutter, but some of us \ | | are looking at the stars." | \ shannon@morgan.ucs.mun.ca | -- Oscar Wilde /
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