Scream 3 ---- ** (out of 5) (2000)
Cast: Neve Campbell, David Arquette, Courteney Cox Arquette, Patrick Dempsey, Parker Posey
Director(s): Wes Craven
Screenwriter(s): Ehren Kruger
Released on: February 4, 2000
Reviewed on: June 13, 2004
Rated: R - for violence, gore, and profanity
I had one very daunting question running through my mind throughout the duration of SCREAM 3. Why did the producers intend from the beginning for this franchise to be a trilogy when it didn't really have any juice left in it by the end of SCREAM 2 anyway? Sure, we're promised that the trilogy is going to end with a bang, but the entire effort proved to be nothing more than a series gone stale. Unlike the fresh and impressive Scream or its moderately enjoyable sequel, SCREAM 3 is just overlong and underwhelming.
A brand new killer is back behind the SCREAM mask once again and is killing all those in his path in the search for Sydney Prescott. What makes this killer most menacing is that he/she is equipped with an advanced voice changer that allows the holder to capture another person's voice just by recording a small snippet of it, and then the killer themself can perfectly mock that voice as an advantage. Nowadays, Syndey is the phone operator for a women's crisis center, but in reality, she is experiencing a crisis herself with recurring visions of her deceased mother haunting her. Soon, she must come to the aid of Officer Dewey and Gale Weathers as they inform her of murders on the set of STAB 3, the newest sequel to further document and rehash the murders of Woodsboro that happened in "real life" years ago. The killer, showing twisted creativity, is picking off the cast members in the order that their lives are taken in the script for the movie. In each victim's place, the killer leaves a different photo of Marine Prescott (Sydney's mother) taken at various times in her life. A murder investigation is underway to track down and unmask this new psycho before he gets his hands on Sydney.
As I much had high hopes for the creative minds of SCREAM to pull through and deliver a solid, entertaining climax for a film that was promised not to have any sequels beyond the second, my hopes were in vain. Even though it is now the summer of 2004, and the SCREAM franchise isn't showing any signs of rising from the dead and tossing a sure-to-be moronic SCREAM 4 at us, I must say that I was devastatingly disappointed in the abysmal efforts put forth to having a great ending to the trilogy. I remember when the series was fresh at one time and even its sequel, which worries all movie-goers and critics, turned out to be nearly as good as the first. There's not much else you can do with a killer that hides behind the same dumb Grim Reaper mask every movie and calls up his victims on the phone with a creepy "Hello..." That concept was totally spent with the release of a little film called Scary Movie, which did nothing short of butcher the life out of SCREAM down to the last scene and line of dialogue.
Now, I guess it's best that I progress on to the end of the film which, inevitably, was the worst scene throughout all of SCREAM 3. Admist all of the terrified screaming and people running like chickens with their heads cut off, the final few scenes in the film managed to top all of that stupidity with an uninspired and pathetic attempt at tying up all of the loose ends to Sydney's past. What we end up with is a killer with a weak, pointless alibi that doesn't come close to serving as a decent motive for donning a mask, picking up a knife, and brutally murdering people. I guess it helps that he only aided in ridding us of the idiotic people and leaving us with the characters that we can actually show some affection towards this time around (i.e. Sydney, Dewey, Gale). So, in conclusion, I must mention the supposed "bang" of an ending that SCREAM 3 promised. I'd say it was somewhat of a bang. But, it's more like the bang you hear out of an exhaust pipe directly before the engine sputters and dies.
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