Review of Scream 3 (2000) by Zack L — 01 Nov 2015

While clearly being the perfect end to the trilogy, tying up all loose ends and adhering to all tropes of third movies, Scream 3 just doesn't work as well as it should have. It seems far too preoccupied with poking fun at itself, cramming its overly meta humour down the throat of the audience. With a plot centred around the making of 'Stab 3', the obvious and over-the-top jokes make for an overstuffed threequel that while tonally and story-wise completes the trilogy, just cannot live up to the original two.

It's really telling of the kind of movie that despite having watched it yesterday, I struggle to remember parts of it. Because, to be honest, it's just not that memorable.

Again, it's well-acted. The three staples of the franchise, Campbell, Arquette, and Cox have great chemistry together, clearly trying their hardest to make the best of a rather mediocre script. The major plot points are pandery, and the film makes a point of over-explaining exposition and trilogy tropes to the audience. For example, they have the sister of Jamie Kennedy's character bring Sidney a video tape on which Kennedy explains to the leads the rules of third movies. While it's great to see Kennedy back, and this scene actually works, from then on anytime one of the rules applies, they basically say, "Remember what Randy said, [insert rule here]." It gets tiresome.

The big reveal at the end is quite unwaranted and obvious also. Just no where near as clever as the previous films.

All in all, Scream 3 fails at being what it claims to be: a horror-comedy. It's just a comedy. With a serial killer. And a random explosion. There's not one intense moment in this film.

However, in it's quest to tie up all loose ends in plot and tone, it actually succeeds, perhaps too well. That's at least a positive about this movie.