SCREAM 3 (2000)
By: Steve BiodrowskiDate: Friday, February 04, 2000
Does success breed paranoia? Apparently so, since Miramax decided to keep SCREAM 3 well away from the Internet press (no press junkets or advance screenings). One would suspect this meant the distributor had something to hide, yet the film itself turns out to be easily the best of the trilogy. If they'd provided a sneak peak, we would have been falling all over ourselves for the last week singing the film's praises. Go figure.
Anyway, the familiar elements are back in place: the phone calls, the ghost-faced killer, the inside jokes. Fortunately, this baggage is not enough to weigh the film down. Let's face it: the SCREAM franchise has always been ridiculously overrated. Kevin Williamson's stock-in-trade was quite simple, really: reuse lots of stuff from older movies, but have the characters talk about those older movies in order to avoid the accusation of plagiarism. The results (in both the SCREAM films and in THE FACULTY) was a mechanical kind of construction, intercut with hip, detached humor that was supposed to make us overlook the rather obvious flaws.
Some of that remains in this film. As in SCREAM and SCREAM 2, the filmmakers don't want the victims to appear like the weak fools in most slasher films, so almost everybody gets to punch and/or kick their attacker. But they are still victims, and they still dieno matter how much punishment is inflicted on their assailant. This reaches almost risible proportions in the very first sequence when Live Schreiber tosses the masked killer against a bookshelf, and we realize he should be able to take the guy out with one punch. Of course, then the movie would be over, so the killer prevails, despite looking like a helpless wimp. Subsequent attacks improve on this situation by utilizing the element of surprise to put the victims at a disadvantage, but the bottom line is that, besides the spooky mask, this murderer is not all that intimidating physically.
What makes this film an improvement over its predecessors is not so much the horror aspect. That is still there, of course, and it works, providing suspense and jump scares at regular intervals. Rather, the strength here arises out of the satirical overtones. By setting the film in Hollywood, and building the plot around the filming of STAB 3 (supposedly a sequel to two hit films based on the events of SCREAM and SCREAM 2) SCREAM 3 moves much closer to director Wes Craven's NEW NIGHTMARE. The surreal moment of walking onto a set that duplicates the location of the first film is a grand bit of disorienting horror, and the careful jabs at Hollywood (self-absorbed actors, ruthless producers) are genuinely funny. It's as if the series finally has something substantial to say, instead of simply mimicking older horror films. And Craven even manages to toss in a creepy dream sequencehis forte. This is certainly his best work since NEW NIGHTMARE, and in some ways it's even better, incorporating the self-reflexivity and wit of that film, while maintain the visceral impact of the horror to a much higher degree.
The endless talk about well-known films has been gracefully trimmed down, mostly to one key sequence involving a videotape of a character who died in Part 2. This nicely sets up the idea that, being the third part of a trilogy, SCREAM 3 doesn't have to play by the rules of its predecessors, and may even kill off its major characters. It's a clever sequence, one that uses the audience's filmic knowledge to increase suspense rather than garner a cheap laugh. This pays off in a movie that actually has some kind of inner life of its own. Rather than simply mirroring previous films, SCREAM 3 is a film unto itself. Freed from simply following the paces of countless characters before them, these characters develop some life; the feeling of mechanical repetition is gone, replaced by legitimate plot developments as the characters take action and try to do something, without worrying every step of the way about what their counterparts did in HALLOWEEN or PROM NIGHT.
Thanks go to new screenwriter Ehren Kruger (sounds like a pseudonym, derived from Craven's A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, but Mr. Kruger already has other credits under his belt). He has taken an overrated franchise and scripted a final installment that actually lives up to the hype lavished on the first two. (Especially funny is the idea of taking bitchy reporter Gail Weathers [Courtney Cox Arquette] and teaming her up with a pompous actress [Parker Posey] who plays her in STAB 3.) Even Kruger, however, succumbs to some of the weakness in the series. Most notably, the revelation of the killer is anticlimactic (though not predictable). None of the SCREAM films has a really interesting killer, and none of their 'explanations' comes even close to providing the basis for a psychopathology that would lead to serial murder. They're just there because somebody has to be guilty, not that it really matters who. (Curiously, the killer's explanation closely references the events of SCREAM but more or less ignores SCREAM 2is somebody telling us something? Like, they regret the explanation for SCREAM 2?)
Kruger also misses a golden opportunity in the final confrontation. The ghost-faced killer turns out (not surprisingly) to be one of the film's many Hollywood players. When he (or shebut I'll stick to one pronoun for ease of syntax) starts to lay out his plan for how he's going to get away with all the murders by framing someone else, you want to scream out at him, 'You're a lousy filmmaker who relies on shock effects to cover up gaping plot holesyou're crazy scheme will never work, because it makes no sense!' Certainly, words to this effect should have been voiced by Sidney (Neve Campbell). It would have been the perfect over-the-top capper to the whole movie and to the trilogy. (Placing the blame on someone associated with the horror genre seems a nod to Dario Argento's TENEBRAE. The effect here isn't quite as powerful; on the other hand, Argento himself hasn't made anything nearly this good in over a decade.)
These nitpicking complaints aside, SCREAM 3 is a strong effort that should match the success of its predecessors. Just when BLAIR WITCH PROJECT and THE SIXTH SENSE seemed to be moving horror in a new direction, along comes this film indicating there may be life left yet in the comedy-horror subgenre. The tech credits are all exemplary (I'll mention Peter Demming's cinematography, since his name is clearly seen in the film on a chair at the studio filming STAB 3). The performances are better than ever. And we get great cameos from Roger Corman, Carrie Fisher (as a former actress who looks like Carrie Fisher), and Jay and Silent Bob. What more could you ask for? Fans of the previous films should be please, and even those who wondered what all the screaming was about, may find themselves pleasantly surprised this time.
A Dimension Release, February 4, 2000. Directed by Wes Craven. Written by Ehren Kruger. Cinematography: Peter Demming. Music: Marco Beltrami. Rated R, 118 mins. With: Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox Arquette, David Arquette, Lance Henriksen, Parker Posey, Jenny McCarthy.
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