- Title: Scream 3
- IMDb: link
Scream Sunday takes us back to when the franchise first hit its rough patch. Rather than offer another sequel, Scream 3 attempts to reshape the three Scream films into a cohesive trilogy retroactively allowing for the film to dive into new rules to abide and reframing the events of the original Scream to reveal a hidden backstory for Maureen Prescott with ties to all the murders. The film brings Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) out of seclusion to the set of Stab 3 (a movie supposedly about the Woodsboro murders making you wonder how the previous two movies, also about those events, didn’t already cover all of this?) where a new Ghostface (Roger Jackson) is killing victims in part to draw Sidney out into the open.
The script, notably not written by Kevin Williamson, is a mess of half-baked ideas and rewrites really only notable for the setup to get Sidney on the set of the recreated Woodsboro (which takes up a fraction of the film’s runtime). Dewey (David Arquette), and Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) return as well and we get a message from the grave courtesy from Randy (Jamie Kennedy). The most notable victim of the film is Cotton Weary (Liev Schreiber). Other victims include Emily Mortimer, Parker Posey, and Jenny McCarthy (who is given far too much “acting” time before finally being put out of her misery).
As with the previous film, the reveal is anticlimactic, overly drawn-out, and, this time around even lamer than usual. Scream 3 isn’t the worst of the franchise, that would come a decade later in which many of the overplayed aspects of the series are brought back yet again with an even more ludicrous killer than we get this time around. In defense of the film, some have retconned the Maureen Prescott backstory involving her ruin in Hollywood to directly tie to Harvey Weinstein (who actually produced the Scream films) and his scandal. However, while one may argue some similar ideas may be present, they are hardly insightful being mostly buried under a cumbersome plot and sequel shenanigans which insure they are never fully explored (while still pretty much blaming the victim by the end of our killer’s diatribe).
Watch the trailer
