Scream 3 is a film hampered by the weight of expectation, it's own lack of truly original ideas and the general apathy of the makers toward their material.
For about sixty seconds the opening is impressively different from its predecessors, before the conventions creep back in and the script starts to buckle under it's own tedium. The killer demands to know the whereabouts of Sidney Prescott from his hapless phone victim, Cotton Weary. So now we have to wait not only for the endless round of stalk-and-chase scenes on the perky heroin, but for the killer to actually find her in the first place.
The post-title trawl around the various locations of the original characters gradually brings them all together. In order to continue the "tension" the script once again has split Dewey and Weathers and attempts to surprise greatly by re-uniting them again at the end. Meanwhile no-one whatsoever is interested in the Campbell's character, who once again plays a supporting role to the many cameos, in-jokes and new characters.
Scream 3 has absolutely no focus and is a remarkably cold experience. The characters in Scream were always stronger than those of its successor but this time even the few remaining ones have been underwritten and acted with little enthusiasm from the cast (a similar flaw can be found in Marquand's Return of the Jedi). Arquette is stiff and uninteresting, Cox-Arquette nervy and thoroughly stereotyped (some may remember how impressively her characterisation just avoided obvious cliché two films ago) and Campbell simply awaiting the pay cheque. New characters provide little interest since they are predominantly "actors" playing Scream characters in film-within-film horror-movie, Stab 3.
So the dearth of human interest thoroughly unengaged (bar an amusing and rather touching cameo from Jamie Kennedy as film buff Randy) whose personality only serves to reminds us of how inferior the series has become, one inevitably looks to the suspense elements for a modicum of real interest.
Unfortunately, the identity of the killer is an area that the cynical minds behind this concoction might have paid greater attention to, but alas it has scarcely been more obvious. It would take an extremely deficient mind not to guess at once who he/she is from the early set-pieces. This is made even more obvious by the sheer obviousness of its red herrings. The chase sequences are executed with requisite gusto and style by Craven, even playing games with our memory of the sets in the original film (which have of course been reproduced in proportion-perfect detail in the Hollywood back-lots), but can not disguise the fact that they are tense but never once frightening.
The hopeless (and frankly, incoherent) finale takes far too long to reveal what we have already guessed at anyway, and revels in sadism and brutality towards women even more than usual, whilst singularly failing to deliver anything new in its closing seconds. For all its smug mocking of genre clichés, it is remarkable how many there are that these films would rather you didn't notice they are adhering to. Logic, of course, has become irrelevant by now and once again the killer keeps on trying to kill the protagonist before using his final chance to stop and explain all the motives.
Most galling of all is the defence of the film's existence in terms of its trilogy status. Scream 2 hinted at it with a throw-away remark, but part 3 never misses an opportunity to remind as us that we are watching "part 3 of 3", even though the killer never actually states an intention to finish a trilogy. All concerned (characters and film-makers) seem intent on following the rules and guides set out by Randy in his video monologue. The three-act structure adds nothing to the drama or our understanding of the previous films, except to relentlessly point out that some detail from the past which we have overlooked may come back to get us in the last reel (it never does by the way, it just contrives new back-stories which were evidently not there first time around).
If Craven, Williamson et al had never made another Scream film, who exactly would be crying out for precisely two more? Scream would be recognised for what it really is (and the more of these films that get made, the more the original film is undermined), a witty and energetic horror spoof that conquered the hardest (and generally, most pointless) genre of all, the horror-comedy, and succeeded in both. There was nothing exceptional in the idea, but it was executed with startling technical proficiency and a real affection for the spirit of the films it lampooned. The characters may have been thinly drawn and two-dimensional but they were at least engaging to watch for the running time. And crucially, Sidney's slightly dour self-pity was nicely offset by her spunk-filled friend Tatum (the lovely Rose MacGowan). In 2 and 3 there had been no foil for Sidney and she is simply the dull centre of a lifeless universe.
The swipes and references to horror films were never over-emphasised, but a believable part of the film's world; the closet small-town community that might well have been drip-fed scary movies set in towns like theirs. The move towards more commercially viable (and populated) locales in the subsequent films has lessened their impact considerably and left a fundamental flaw in their ideology: the main point that 2 and 3 have kept making is that under the cloak of celebrity and fame, the plight of the individuals who suffered is forgotten. People make money out of other peoples' misery and take the benefits that come with it. Problem is, the sequel makers care just as little about human beings and are content to simply sit back and wallow in the sound of cash-tills pinging the world over.
For about sixty seconds the opening is impressively different from its predecessors, before the conventions creep back in and the script starts to buckle under it's own tedium. The killer demands to know the whereabouts of Sidney Prescott from his hapless phone victim, Cotton Weary. So now we have to wait not only for the endless round of stalk-and-chase scenes on the perky heroin, but for the killer to actually find her in the first place.
The post-title trawl around the various locations of the original characters gradually brings them all together. In order to continue the "tension" the script once again has split Dewey and Weathers and attempts to surprise greatly by re-uniting them again at the end. Meanwhile no-one whatsoever is interested in the Campbell's character, who once again plays a supporting role to the many cameos, in-jokes and new characters.
Scream 3 has absolutely no focus and is a remarkably cold experience. The characters in Scream were always stronger than those of its successor but this time even the few remaining ones have been underwritten and acted with little enthusiasm from the cast (a similar flaw can be found in Marquand's Return of the Jedi). Arquette is stiff and uninteresting, Cox-Arquette nervy and thoroughly stereotyped (some may remember how impressively her characterisation just avoided obvious cliché two films ago) and Campbell simply awaiting the pay cheque. New characters provide little interest since they are predominantly "actors" playing Scream characters in film-within-film horror-movie, Stab 3.
So the dearth of human interest thoroughly unengaged (bar an amusing and rather touching cameo from Jamie Kennedy as film buff Randy) whose personality only serves to reminds us of how inferior the series has become, one inevitably looks to the suspense elements for a modicum of real interest.
Unfortunately, the identity of the killer is an area that the cynical minds behind this concoction might have paid greater attention to, but alas it has scarcely been more obvious. It would take an extremely deficient mind not to guess at once who he/she is from the early set-pieces. This is made even more obvious by the sheer obviousness of its red herrings. The chase sequences are executed with requisite gusto and style by Craven, even playing games with our memory of the sets in the original film (which have of course been reproduced in proportion-perfect detail in the Hollywood back-lots), but can not disguise the fact that they are tense but never once frightening.
The hopeless (and frankly, incoherent) finale takes far too long to reveal what we have already guessed at anyway, and revels in sadism and brutality towards women even more than usual, whilst singularly failing to deliver anything new in its closing seconds. For all its smug mocking of genre clichés, it is remarkable how many there are that these films would rather you didn't notice they are adhering to. Logic, of course, has become irrelevant by now and once again the killer keeps on trying to kill the protagonist before using his final chance to stop and explain all the motives.
Most galling of all is the defence of the film's existence in terms of its trilogy status. Scream 2 hinted at it with a throw-away remark, but part 3 never misses an opportunity to remind as us that we are watching "part 3 of 3", even though the killer never actually states an intention to finish a trilogy. All concerned (characters and film-makers) seem intent on following the rules and guides set out by Randy in his video monologue. The three-act structure adds nothing to the drama or our understanding of the previous films, except to relentlessly point out that some detail from the past which we have overlooked may come back to get us in the last reel (it never does by the way, it just contrives new back-stories which were evidently not there first time around).
If Craven, Williamson et al had never made another Scream film, who exactly would be crying out for precisely two more? Scream would be recognised for what it really is (and the more of these films that get made, the more the original film is undermined), a witty and energetic horror spoof that conquered the hardest (and generally, most pointless) genre of all, the horror-comedy, and succeeded in both. There was nothing exceptional in the idea, but it was executed with startling technical proficiency and a real affection for the spirit of the films it lampooned. The characters may have been thinly drawn and two-dimensional but they were at least engaging to watch for the running time. And crucially, Sidney's slightly dour self-pity was nicely offset by her spunk-filled friend Tatum (the lovely Rose MacGowan). In 2 and 3 there had been no foil for Sidney and she is simply the dull centre of a lifeless universe.
The swipes and references to horror films were never over-emphasised, but a believable part of the film's world; the closet small-town community that might well have been drip-fed scary movies set in towns like theirs. The move towards more commercially viable (and populated) locales in the subsequent films has lessened their impact considerably and left a fundamental flaw in their ideology: the main point that 2 and 3 have kept making is that under the cloak of celebrity and fame, the plight of the individuals who suffered is forgotten. People make money out of other peoples' misery and take the benefits that come with it. Problem is, the sequel makers care just as little about human beings and are content to simply sit back and wallow in the sound of cash-tills pinging the world over.