Review of Scream 3 (2000) by Harry W — 21 Jan 2013

I don't know how f*cked in the head you have to be to say that Scream 3 was worse than Scream 2, or that THIS was the point where the film series became the very type of film they were satirizing. At least Wes Craven put more effort into Scream 3. It still isn't enough for me to call it a good film, though.

Scream 3 suffered from lacking sufficient intensity in building up the death scenes and the inability to provide the proper atmosphere.

The entire script in Scream 3 is also fairly poor and features the worst line in scriptwriting history which is the moment where David Arquette mutters the line "If I thought like a homicidal maniac I'd think like a homicidal maniac thinks". At least his performance overall in the film manages to overshadow that one moment of absolute weakness.

The fact that Scream 3 intended to be part of a trilogy ensures that there has to be a twist ending in there, also because the characters are throwing that information at you the whole time. Even though the twist ending ended up being pretty cool, it seemed to forced and obviously going to turn up. It also retreaded elements from the twist in the first Scream and seemed somehow kind of obvious who the killer was.

There was also an irregular musical score accompanying the story.

On the plus side, Scream 3 is an improvement over it's predecessor.

Again, Neve Campbell and Courtney Cox dominate the screen with talent. There's also cool nostalgic cameos from Jay and Silent Bob, as well as Carrie Fisher.

The high point though comes from Deon Richmond. Since Scream has now become a franchise of semi-unintentional comedies, Deon Richmond is hilarious. He doesn't get much screen time, but in the scene where Ghostface 5 is pursuing him and he utters the line "Oh you motherf*cker" is greatly humourous, and if you're a fan of Deon's work on The Cosby Show, its just all the more funny because it shows how far he's come since being that little kid.

Scream 3 is also filmed on good locations and features a well delivered end scene that strongly brings a close to the trilogy.

So whatever you think. I think Scream 3 is better than Scream 2, but not half as good as Scream, and I know others who think so. That's MY case, what is yours?