My Review:
The third and final (hopefully) sequal to the famed Scream series further expands on the franchise. It again involves Sidney Prescott (Campbell) being chased by "Ghostface" while other people around her get killed in the way. You know, I was extremely disappointed on how Scream 2 delivered a really lousy ending because the killers were so underdeveloped in the storyline and so you always hope someone really importent would be the killers. Well you folks guessed wrong. And it seems this new movie didn't learn from the past.
Sidney Prescott has finally graduated from Windsor Film School and has secluded herself from the rest of society after the horrific murders that occured. She's changed her name to "Laura" and has now become a counsellor for a public women-in-distress line. Of course her old buddies don't know that, which includes her reporter friend Gale Weathers (Cox) and amateur policeman Dewey (Arquette). But oh-my-gawd the killings start happening again and the killer(s) is using technology to his advantage this time. Yes, Ghostface is disguising his voice on the phone but not just by turning it raspy. He's also using other people's voices as well and manipulating them as well. There's also a new movie being produced based on the Woodsboro murders, being called "Stab 3" and the cast members are being picked off one by one by the order in the script. So Sidney has to come out of her hiding after Ghostface calls her and meets up with her old buddies and yadda-yadda-yadda after finding out a new angle to her mother's death it leads to the final scene where the killer(s) reveal the surprise "twist" when the unmasking begins.
First off, let me tell you this. It is absoulutly IMPOSSIBLE to guess who Ghostface is this time around. You can watch Scream and Scream 2 a million times but you will never figure out the ending to this one. Surprises come up in the middle of the movie out of nowhere, and you would have never guessed it. There is absoulutely no fighting chance to this one, which is not to say is a bad thing but the charactors don't accuse themselves as much and some fun is lost out of that. But the main and most importent complaint is the ending once again. This movie is supposed to end the Scream series and I was hoping they'd do it in style with a LARGER twist then the movie presented in this film. I was absoulutely disappointed at who Ghostface was at the end, again. Another problem is how only NOW Sidney starts to think about her mother (as shown in the dream sequence). She had all of Scream 2 to think about her and now all of a sudden for sequal's sake she finally brings her up, just to provide a new plot revolving her mother, WHICH I cannot mention here.
But the movie does succeed in providing some positive frightning scenes as shown by the dream sequence which Sidney has with her mother. There are also many other scenes from which Ghotface pops up outta nowhere to deliver some shocking thrills. I actually thought this was more scarier then the past two efforts. Eventually some scenes become redundant with Ghostface popping up as you eventually become to predict his appearences, but that's just a minor complaint. The thing that struck me the most is how with the ending you actuallly become sympathatic to the person behind Ghostface which is actually quite new for this series. You feel...sorry for the person and that hasn't happened before. But of course, the movie did not expand on the sadness of the charactor and I feel it could have been achieved better if the movie would slow down and just give it some time and play with it a bit more. They could have told us a lot more about the person. The person's sadness was justified as well and I just wish now they could have make us feel for the person's sadness even more. But of course folks this is "standard" horror, and it "doesn't" belong here. Its too bad really. I was really hoping to feel some compassion for the person's murderous rampage. But the film doesn't give you a chance to feel much of anything. I mean come one. The traditional bad-guy is pure evil, and this movie the person was too, but then again he wasn't, and the film could have given the audience a movie where maybe you DON'T want the "bad-guy" to die afterall because at the end because you FEEL for his pain.
Finally the satrical nature of the film is way too obvious and is a bit of a downer. Don't tell us what it is, show us! And all the usual horror-film cliches are here. Charactors stick together, and then they break-up just to get killed. For what? Don't they know Randy's rules??
Overall I feel this film could have achieved a lot more. Ghostface was one of those charactors who was underdeveloped and could have been developed a lot more at the finale (oops, spoiler!). They were sitting on a goldmine! I have a tagline for this movie: Its three times as worse!!
RATING: ***