By Geno McGahee
In 1996, SCREAM became a sensation. Wes Craven reclaimed the genre with a big hit. It was unique and presented a self-aware horror film with a surprising ending. There was a lot to like about SCREAM and it came out during a bad time for horror films. It was the right film at the right time.
One year later, SCREAM 2 was released and it was horrible. The thought was that it was rushed. It wasn’t nearly as clever as the first and the ending was silly and uninspired. This was a cash-grab and the reception from the horror fans was not good. Craven had a chance to really build on the series but the follow-up left a lot to be desired.
Three years after SCREAM 2, the third in the series was released and it borders on silly. STAB 3, the horror movie within the horror movie is being produced and somebody is killing the people its based on according to the order of the script. The main characters find their way back and they team up again to figure out who the killer(s) is and how they can stop him/her/them.
We begin with Cotton Weary (Liev Schreiber). The former alleged killer is now a celebrity and loving his status. I always thought it would have been cool to mix in Weary with the murders somehow. It would have been Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) feel better about railroading him. Weary gets a phone call from a supposed fan that quickly turns into the ghost-face killer. When he goes home to save his girl, he is murdered and that really sets the tone.
Dewey (David Arquette) is a consultant for STAB 3 and his old flame, Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox) returns to help with the investigation. Sidney comes back and now we have the original big three players from the first trying to figure it out. They have concluded that it has to do with Sidney’s mother because pictures of her are left behind at the murders. A dead character returns as well. Randy (Jamie Kennedy) leaves a video behind just in case they kill him in the second one and they stop those killers and more killers come back and take the role of ghost face again. The information that Randy has doesn’t seem too helpful. In fact, it’s very odd that he would assume that a third killer(s) would arise. Why didn’t he leave behind more tapes? I mean, he assumed that it would be over after three, apparently, but FRIDAY THE 13th has 11 or 12 movies. I think that Randy should have left behind 12 tapes, just in case.
In a shocking twist, Sidney’s mother was an actress and has ties to the STAB director, John Milton (Lance Henriksen). Wow, they are really grasping at straws to create suspects. You can’t go wrong with Henriksen and he takes the role on with the same ambition and delivery as usual. He becomes one of the most likely suspects, but he’s too obvious.
Sidney is having terrible nightmares about her mother coming back from the dead and haunting her. OK, this is also new stuff. I guess finding out that her mother had secrets screwed with her mind. The scene where the mother returns in her dream is not scary. I think they thought that her mean faces and tapping on the window would be terrifying, but it wasn’t. This movie is not much of a horror film, really. It’s bordering on comedy…a very unfunny comedy.
The killer(s) goes around and his motive is still unknown. As the killer attacks the main characters, the hilarity ensues…or the lack thereof. This film could not decide what it wanted to be. It is not working as a slasher and it’s not working as a comedy, but they attempted to push both genres into one big mess. SCREAM succeeded as a slasher with some comedic points, but this one really goes overboard and shoves the comedy down the viewer’s throat. There are moments where they nearly say “isn’t this funny?” When there is this much force humor, you can take the deaths or horror very seriously. The moments of levity really took away from this film.
Sidney returns to face her past and discovers that her mother had another life, leading to the most absurd twist of possibly all time. The fact that her mother was an actress that slept her way into film along with sleeping with Cotton Weary and just about every other dude is another part of this film that just has you scratching your head. I just wonder why the money men behind this film didn’t look at this script and say: “No fucking way. This sucks.”
SCREAM 3 attempts to recapture the magic but really falls short. The performances are corny and many of the characters are just unbelievable. They are way too over the top silly to take this movie seriously. In the original SCREAM, I was surprised by the ending. This one, I didn’t really care and the end shocker wasn’t very shocking. The reasoning behind the bloodbath is stupid and the film just doesn’t work as a horror entry and fails as a comedy. If you’re a fan of the first one, this one is worth a watch, but it doesn’t support the story as it should. It’s a wreck.
Rating: 4/10 Do you like scary movies? Yes? Then skip this one.
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