Scream 3 (2000) – God, why don’t stop your whining and get on with it? I’ve heard this shit before!

Welcome to the installment of the franchise that makes me very unhappy. Oh Scream 3, how do I hate thee? Let me count the ways. Seriously, I’ve made a list of reasons it’s an unwatchable shit show. I couldn’t get through the movie in one sitting in 2000. I left about 60 minutes in, I was that annoyed. I re-watched it 3 weeks ago for the benefit of this blog and, after watching it in its entirety for the first time, 12 years later, I mused to Gillian: “Wow, I though the first half was bad but it has got nothing on the second half.” Honestly, if I wasn’t writing these little reflections, I don’t think I would have made it through Scream 3 in 2012 either.

Where could things have gone so wrong? Was it because the effective Mr. Kevin Williamson bailed on the final installment? Or due to the fact that, by 2000, Courtney Cox was a much bigger star than Neve Campbell and her role was expanded to give Cox almost equal screen time with our heroine? Could it be that, after two films about four different people wearing the same rubber mask to murder everyone Sidney Prescott had ever met, the premise was stretched beyond recognition and credulity? Yes, yes and yeeeeeeeeeees. However, these are not the aspects that make Scream 3 really bad. No, it’s the little (er) things that make the film such a write-off. These small details, in combination with the shadow cast by its clever, innovative older siblings, cause Scream 3 to suffer especially severely in a contemporary re-watch. The film that was supposed to be the closing chapter of the franchise alternates between boring, stupid and creepy for all the wrong reasons. So without further adieu, I give you:

5 Reasons Scream 3 is Terrible

1. The Misguided Attempt to “Tone It Down”

The “it” in that title refers to violence. Scream 3 represents an attempt to tone down the violence in a slasher movie. As you might guess, this hamstrings the endeavour from minute one. It’s also the only reason on this list the creative forces behind the film can’t be held entirely accountable for. The catalyst for the decision to dampen the violent content was a tragic event in 1999. Two assholes took semi-automatic weapons to school and murdered their fellow students in cold blood. Yup, , the Columbine High School massacre gave the children of the U.S metal detectors in their schools, Michael Moore weird creditably as a social commentator and the studio execs in charge of Scream 3 the notion that they should attempt to make a much less violent slasher movie. Worst. Idea. Ever.

I understand that movies are a business and business must be sensitive to its markets and the markets at the time were particularly critical of violent content but dear Lord, it’s a franchise about stabbing people. As Wes Craven apparently pointed out; the premise is the senseless murder of innocents. To this the money people said: “Okay, we’ll go ahead with that but let’s keep it tasteful and sensitive.” The result? A total overhaul of Willamson’s concept by writer Erhen Kruger that verges on unintentional satire of itself, a weirdly disinterested main character and….

2. A Romantic Sub-plot That Threatens to Eclipses the Actual Plot

As if it wasn’t bad enough that bland faced Dewey and conniving Gale are a boring re-hash of the done-to-death opposites attract archetype; this movie has the nerve to give this snooze inducing relationship so much development and screen time that it’s almost on par with the “who dunnit” main story. It’s a horror movie, I want to see people getting stabbed in the head. (Thanks, Scream 4!)

I don’t want to watch David Arquette/Courtney Cox (wooden and shrill respectively) work through their characters’ unresolved emotional entanglements for 2/3 of the damn run time. Stop acting like this is the reason I bought my ticket, Movie. It’s not. No one cares. I shouldn’t feel like I’m watching a 116 minute long episode of Friends with a bucket of blood dumped over it.

3. The Metaphoric and Literal Ghosts of Sidney’s Mom

This is one of many examples wherein Scream 3 totally abandons the pretense of intelligent movie making. It may not be the most obvious but it’s the one I find most insulting. The film presents us with a metaphoric plot device personified by Roman Bridger. He represents the inability to escape the past. Roman is the unknown, emotionally rejected director of Stab 3 and half-brother of Sidney through Maureen (her mother) from an earlier, hitherto, unknown part of Mommy’s life. The repercussions (several people being murdered) of Maureen’s actions in the first and second films haunt Sidney’s life metaphorically. It’s revealed Roman encouraged Billy Loomis and Stu Macher to kill Maureen. Roman, having set in motion the murders in the first film, then returns for unclear reasons to torment Sidney and, motivated by revenge, reeks havoc as Ghostface in the third. It’s not a great plot but I would have accepted it had they left well enough alone. For some reason this script feels that the metaphoric ghost of the past is not clear-cut enough for the audience. Nope, for the benefit of anyone watching the movie that’s missing most of their brain, the writers have graciously given us a literal ghost from the past too.

The walking (hovering?), talking, spooooooooky, full on pasty-faced ghost of Sidney’s mother. Who’s only purpose, it seems, is to compete with the metaphoric ghost for the prize of stupidest plot device in the movie. Damn you, Scream 3. Why are you compelled to ruin yourself with unforgivable heavy-handedness? Speaking of unnecessary shit…

4. Nonsensical and Masturbatory Cameos

Jay and Silent Bob. Carrie Fisher as a Carrie Fisher look-alike. I won’t insult you by explaining why these appearances in a Scream movie are stupid.

5. The Scooby Doo-esque Lead Up to the Climax and the Reversal of Previously Progressive Gender Dialogue .

I can only assume the following conversation occurred at some point during the concept development for Scream 3:

Idiot Screenwriter 1: You know what would make this convoluted and poorly developed plot more exciting?

Idiot Screenwriter 2: More ghosts? No, a dinosaur! Two dinosaurs!

Idiot Screenwriter 1: Those are good ideas but imagine this: Secret passages in a fancy old mansion! They’ll serve to draw out the tension while adding visual interest in a totally ridiculous and un-frightening way.

Idiot Screenwriter 2: You’re a genius.

Then the writers, again I assume, gave each other hand-jobs while thinking of the cameos mentioned in number four and allowed a pet parrot to finish the script.

Did I mention I hate this movie? But in all seriousness, there’s a 20 minute sequence at the height of what should be the climatic tension that runs like a poorly staged Benny Hill skit. Ghostface chases the remaining members of the cast through the secret tunnels and rooms of a movie producer’s house and kills them one by one. To be fair, by this point in the film you don’t give a shit what happens to any of them, so I can’t say it ruins the tension. You can’t ruin something that doesn’t exist.

At the height of the non-tension, the stupidity culminates in a tonal 360 during which Sidney and her long-lost brother face off in the secret projection room where their mom was gang raped in the 70s. Roman explains that this event damaged the mother beyond repair and resulted in Maureen’s later promiscuous, adulterous behavior. HOLY FUCKING HELL, SCREAM 3! What is wrong with you? What a charming message; the implication that victims of sexual assault are damaged sluts after their ordeal is really thematically appropriate and in no way totally misogynistic or horrifyingly creepy! I have no words for how unforgivably backward this plot twist is. For shame.

Scream 3 is one of those movies that leaves you feeling simultaneously sad for, and angry at everyone involved in the production. Originally, I was going to discuss what the movie tries to do. I planned to explore the script’s half-hearted attempt to supersede its own self-commentary by framing the plot with the making of a movie sequel within a movie sequel. I was going to discuss the nature of post modern story telling. But I changed my mind, mainly because these assertions give the film way too much credit. It didn’t have to be this bad but it is, so instead I went with wailing and rending my garments. I have aired my grievances and vented my spleen in the list above as a therapeutic exercise. As purge of the groaning embarrassment and disappointment even an unapologetic lover of the Scream franchise like me feels towards this episode of the series.