Scream 3
The Scream series was intended to be a trilogy of movies released one in December every year for three years. Scream was a huge hit, especially with high school students. Then, a year later, many returned to the theaters making Scream 2 another hit. Almost immediately the buzz for Scream 3 started. Kevin Williamson, who conceived the series and wrote the first two screenplays, began to talk about how in Scream 3 everything will be explained.
But then the problems started. Williamson wanted to concentrate on other projects. So the script was postponed. In the meantime, director Wes Craven, best known for Nightmare on Elm Street, decided to move on to other projects as well. The shooting was postponed even further to accommodate his schedule. The first concrete date anyone had was almost a year after the original planned December 1999 release.
In that move, Scream 3 lost most of their audience. With video releases, interest can be kept high for a year, but two years is a little too extensive. Even die-hard fans were non-plussed by the February 2000 release date. They were frustrated rather than excited and the phrase “this had better be worth it” was used more than once.
While the film still does not hold up to the standards that were set by Scream, it is still more interesting than the average Freddy vs. Jason fare. Of course there is the standard death in the first five minutes, with a tiny twist this time. Also, Sydney (Neve Cambell) has finally figured out how to carry some sort of defense (she keeps a gun in her home and pepper spray in her purse) but still doesn’t seem to have taken up martial arts. A viewer may wonder what good pepper spray will do against a crazed masked killer intend on torturing and killing.
The largest handicap Scream 3 had to overcome was the loss of the character of Randy Meeks, played by Jamie Kennedy. The strange video store employee was more than just comic relief in the first two films; he was an interesting foil to the characters. The interaction between Randy and Deputy Dewey allowed the films to be funny, dark and intelligent at the same time even when other pieces didn’t holdup.
Randy’s conversations with the killer in Scream 2 were priceless and, while he does have a videotaped cameo in Scream 3, he is sorely missed. Five minutes of sage advice on VHS delivered by a useless, tacked on sister do not make up for his death. The only purpose of the scene was to appease the fans that threatened to boycott the third film, and to remind the viewers of the “rules” of a horror movie trilogy.
One of those rules is that “whatever you think you know about the past, you don’t.” When Williamson claimed all questions would be answered, he was perhaps not entirely truthful. Meeks had it more correct; the past seemed to be closed and indeed a boring place to revisit. But Scream 3 managed to open up the old wounds in interesting ways sometimes (the final revelations are indeed worthy of its predecessors) and in a cheesy manner in other situations (Maureen Prescott’s ghost makes a predictable visit).
The burning question is: does Scream 3 live up to the first two Scream films? Well, not really. The setting is Hollywood, a place unfamiliar to most. The body count is higher and bloodier, which takes away from the plot. The characters do not seem to do anything new or different and overall it’s just another way of doing the same thing. The film will definitely please fans of the series or horror films in general. But if you are not a loyal follower of either, it isn’t going to change your mind.
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