‘Scream 3’ (2000) - Review: Ghostface Goes Hollywood

The following contains spoilers for the Scream franchise

I think time has been good for Scream 3. When I finally caught up on the franchise (I watched them way late, a couple years after the 4th one), I was taught that this one is the “worst one” and I guess I agreed? It didn’t feel that much worse or better than 2 or 4, and to state the obvious, nothing can compare to the lightning in a bottle that was Wes Craven’s original. Yet revisiting Scream 3 has actually made me appreciate, or at least think about it a lot more. Especially with what Craven and writer Ehren Kruger (who took the mantle over Kevin Williamson) wanted to tackle.

I really enjoyed that this one feels like the focus is less on the meta aspect of it (although it is definitely here) and more of giving Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell, who’s fantastic as always) an ending to her story. Yeah, we got our core cast, along with some fun additions (Parker Posey is truly a highlight of this movie), but it’s ultimately Sidney’s journey coming to a close. I think the issue with going meta is you can only do it so much before you start having your head up your ass (this one and a later entry suffer from this), so to instead make this one more character driven feels like the smart move. It’s also kind of sweet. You can definitely count on the Scream franchise kicking Sidney’s ass, yet this might be the most we see her struggle internally. She’s got a ton of locks at her home that’s in the middle of nowhere, and while she helps other women on a crisis hotline, she suffers from nightmares including her mother. It does feel weird having dream sequences in a Scream movie, but man does Campbell make us feel for her. Almost weirder than that is the chase scene with her and Ghostface in the prop house from the original movie. It starts off pretty normal until she starts hearing voices in her head, and I found it particularly effective this time around. It’s a great showcase of her spiraling, so much so that Ghostface doesn’t feel like the biggest threat to her, even though he’s the one chasing her around with a knife. While the movie ends kind of really quick, I do love that we see her look at her door, swung wide open, and not mind. It’s a great bookend of her making peace with herself and her past. If Scream really did end here, this would be a nice way to close her story

Maybe my biggest negative with the whole past thing is Roman, Sidney’s half brother that was abandoned by her mother, being the killer. It’s not that great of a reveal (although how the hell did he have access to that kind of voice technology? Didn’t this thing come out in 2000?), but then again, most of the killer reveals pale in comparison to our boys Billy and Stu. But more than that, I am just really not a fan of this trope in franchises, where it’s revealed to us that there was someone else behind the act of the first movie. It’s definitely a personal thing, but that just rarely, if ever, works for me. It feels more lazy than anything, and in a way it sort of minimizes Billy and Stu’s actions to just be fooled by someone else to start their killings. Can’t our guys just be crazy on their own accord?

Speaking of killings, this entry is definitely the least violent of the franchise (although, is the body count higher than the previous two here?). The movie kind of feels at odds with itself here. A big staple of the franchise is that violent horror movies don’t make psychos (Billy puts it perfectly in the first one), and yet the violence is oddly toned down. Maybe studio pressure got in the way, which is a bummer, but also kind of understandable given the time this one came out.

Studio pressure or not, that didn’t stop Craven and Kruger for putting their sights on Hollywood. It makes for a fun new setting, and Craven makes great use of it. And it’s really fun getting copies of our original characters as they’re getting ready to make “Stab”. Parker Posey is easily the standout here (“My lawyer loved that”), but I don’t need to tell you that.

But it does not stop there. In a way, this might be the darkest entry in the franchise, as the subplot regarding John Milton is also a way of calling out the disgusting predatory behavior of powerful Hollywood executives. It raises questions that I’m not going to ask here, but it takes meta in such a dark direction that it makes the whole thing stunning (especially looking at who executive produced this thing). I’m still not over it.

So yeah, I think I was a little too dismissive of Scream 3 initially. I’m not sure it’s the “worst one” in my eyes. It definitely has its issues, many of which make this entry just a little too silly at times. But there’s excellent stuff in here too, both in its attempt to close Sidney’s journey, and in its poking at Hollywood, both the silly and the serious. I may not love all the Scream movies, in fact I only really love the first one. But they’re all pretty solid watches, and I think later entries show how time can actually improve this franchise, at least with the meta aspect.