Written by Ehren Kruger
Directed by Wes Craven
Dewey: "The killer called her."
Mark: "When?"
Gale: "What'd he say?"
Sidney: "Oh you know the usual small talk. "What's new?" "How you been?" "How do you wanna die?"
The above dialogue can be taken in two ways. One, a playful sign of the franchise being aware of it's killer tropes and having fun with them or two, a sign that the franchise was slightly becoming a parody of itself.
Out of the four movies released, this one has always been the weakest for me and the one I've always found myself enjoying the least. It doesn't help that with the exception of Parker Posey's Gale stand in, Jennifer Jolie that none of the new characters in this third offering are even likeable, never mind engaging. I've never wished for so many characters to die or cared when they did watching this.
There are of course some noticeable differences in this movie. First of all, the Stab series become a central plot as the action takes place in Hollywood during the making of the third movie of that franchise where Dewey is a technical adviser and Gale is investigating the spate of killings, kick started by the opening death of Cotton Weary and his unfortunate girlfriend, Christine.
With Dewey and Gale taking on more expanded role while Sidney reappeared a little later into the mix, there was time to get to know and dislike every member of the Stab 3 cast while Dewey and Gale worked on their issues and ultimately together before Sidney entered the picture and the killer's antics also resulted in more history being revealed.
Sticking with the trilogy trope, this movie should be in some ways congratulated for actually giving more of a backstory to Maureen Prescott and tying it into her murder that preceded the first movie. Unfortunately the reveal of Scott Foley's killer director, Roman Bridger being Sidney's half brother who also helped Billy and Stu back then kill Maureen just doesn't hold up as a twist. Probably because Roman doesn't really do anything interesting until then. Granted neither did Debbie or Mickey in the previous movie but yet, they worked as the killers for that one.
The final confrontation has it's moments too. I did like Sidney not getting sucked into Roman's psychosis and Gale and Dewey when they weren't being held captive, did also manage to help save the day. I also liked the ending with the three of them and Patrick Dempsey's detective Mark Kincaid seemingly had closure but compared to the other movies, this one lacked a lot though.
- Sidney had been a recluse in the woods, while helping abused women through a phone network. Neve Campbell only filmed for 20 days for this movie.
- Emily Mortimer played Sidney for the Stab movies. Her character was called Angelina Tyler. Both Jennifer and Angelina's names were lifted off certain actresses.
- Interesting cameos in this movie, notably Carrie Fisher's one when Gale and Jennifer were investgating Maureen's Hollywood connections.
- Despite being killed off in the previous movie, Randy did reappear in order to explain the trilogy rules for everyone. Those included a superhuman killer, anyone can die and the past coming back to haunt you.
The weakest of the four movies, Scream 3 attempted to bring original closure before the franchise would be briefly revived over a decade later. The effort in part is noble but with a combination of horrible new characters and the least interesting killer from the lot, this one is a failure I'm afraid.
Rating: 5 out of 10
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