Scream 3 review
Scream 3 has earned its reputation as the worst movie of the series. It lacks the wit and cruelty of the rest…slipping almost into parody. That doesn’t mean it’s actually a bad movie. It also doesn’t mean that there isn’t some interesting value to be found in retrospect.
Classic movie reviews will contain spoilers.
Scream 3
Directed by Wes Craven
Written by Ehren Kruger
Starring Neve Campbell, David Arquette, Courtney Cox, Patrick Dempsey and Parker Posey
Scream 3 Review
There are two ways to evaluate Scream 3. The fair way is to judge it on its own merits as a horror movie released in the early 2000s. Unfortunately, as a part of a long running series it is impossible to remove comparisons to the franchise it is a part of. As an early 2000s slasher movie…Scream 3 is a fun, goofy and serviceable movie. As a part of the Scream franchise…it’s a total mess.
Sidney (Neve Campbell) has isolated herself from society following her two Ghostface encounters. When the murders start happening again, this time surrounding the production of another movie based on Sidney’s life, she is drawn back in. This Ghostface seems to have a more personal connection to Sidney and her past.
Scream 3 has a lot of problems as a Scream movie. The tone is lighter, the comedy is less witty. There’s a slapstick quality to violence in place of the mean spirited cruelty of the other entries. It often feels like a Scooby Doo movie with Dewey (David Arquette) and Gale (Courtney Cox) running around a haunted mansion. It all adds up to a movie that doesn’t feel like Scream…but there is a far bigger issue at play.
Scream 3 breaks the most important rule of a sequel. It tries to rewrite our understanding of the superior original. Scream is a masterpiece. Any attempt to undermine or alter the meaning of it is like deciding to paint a hat on the Mona Lisa. Look…it can work. Empire Strikes Back changes our understanding of some of the events and characters in A New Hope. There are plenty of examples like this. But there is a difference between deepening connections…and ripping them up. Scream 3 does the latter.
The original gives us two killers, one of which (Billy Loomis) is motivated by his broken family to get revenge. Scream 3 tells us that all of that happened because Sidney has a long-lost brother who sought out Billy and told him what to do, and how to get away with it. To the extent that he tells him to get a partner. Roman Bridger being the unseen mastermind of the murder of Sidney’s mother weakens the plot of the original and sinks Scream 3 to the bottom of the franchise’s overarching story anyway. Luckily, Scream (2022) chooses to ignore this plot and openly credit Billy Loomis for starting this entire saga.
There are positives in Scream 3. The main one being the performance of Parker Posey. She plays Jennifer Jolie, an actress playing Gale Weathers in the Stab 3 movie. She is an absolute riot. One of the best performances in the entire series, stuck in the worst movie.
The returning cast just looks tired and over it at this point. Courtney Cox gives us a good show while playing off of Posey. David Arquette is stuck with a Dewey that borders on parody. Neve Campbell’s role is scaled back until the third act. This is a trilogy ending with a whimper, its stars ready to move on. Or, at least, ready for the 11 year break that was on deck before returning for a far superior Scream 4.
The truth is that Scream 3 is mostly just unmemorable. The plot makes you want to delete it from the canon…and the fact that it doesn’t stylistically fit the series anyway makes it easy to do. The release of further installments helps to shove it onto the oddity shelf. Real life events would bring it back for a completely different viewing experience.
It’s time to talk about the elephant in the room. An aspect of Scream 3 that provides it with an unexpected late in life relevancy. It’s a movie, in part, about the sexual politics of the Hollywood system. Disgusting movie producers and the Hollywood casting couch. The effect on the young women used and discarded by a broken system. Post #MeToo movement this gives Scream 3 an interesting talking point. A footnote for a movie that mostly misses the mark. At least that’s all it would be if the movie wasn’t produced by the Weinsteins.
Scream 3 has a character played by Lance Hendriksen that can be viewed as a direct comparison to Harvey Weinstein. A pig who abuses his power to use young actresses as he sees fit. There’s no way of knowing exactly how this happened. How did the Weinstein’s not only hire the writer who added this character, but approved and produced his script. It’s probably as simple as the idea making sense for what they wanted the story to be…and Harvey Weinstein not seeing any issue with what he was doing in real life. Whatever the case, the lowest installment of the franchise suddenly becomes a prescient and fascinating take down of a man responsible for its own existence.
All of that out of the way…setting aside Scream 3’s place in the franchise and in history…how is the actual movie?
It’s fine. It has some laughs. Not everything lands but it’s throwing a lot more comedy out there than slasher movies generally do. It benefits from already caring about some characters because the script itself does little to do it for them. There are a few clever moments and a couple of good performances. There’s still a mystery at the center…and it’s perfectly fine as an isolated one. Underwhelming in the grand design of the franchise, but fine for a one off story of revenge. There were a lot worse movies coming out of the post-Scream slasher world than Scream 3.
But you can also skip it. With a soon to be released sixth chapter…Scream 3 is, frankly, not important to the series. Not only does it muddy the plot…nothing that important happens. Dewey and Gale end up together in the end…but you can get that from the end of Scream 2. The truth is that the Weinstein connection may be the only thing maintaining any relevancy for the film. The series continues without need of it.
Now watch part 6 try to reinstate it to the conversation. That would be such a Scream thing to do.
Scare Value
The truth is that Scream 3 isn’t that bad. It’s not great…a high bar that every other entry in the series manages to clear. There are a lot of issues here. Not the least of which is that it breaks the cardinal rule of sequels. It aims to change the understanding of the vastly superior original. Things like that make you want to delete it from the canon…something that Scream (2022) quietly does more than once. It has gained traction as an interesting footnote given who produced it and what it’s targeting…but that’s not enough to forgive a script that doesn’t seem to understand what makes the series tick.
2.5/5
Scream 3 Links
Streaming on Paramount+
Rent/Buy on VOD from Vudu
Rent/Buy on VOD from Amazon
Buy on Blu-Ray from Amazon
Scream 3 Trailer
If you enjoyed this review of Scream 3, check out a review of a better classic movie The Silence of the Lambs or see where it ranks in our full series ranking
