TMP RATING: 3/5

While "Stab 3" is in production, somebody in a ghost mask starts to murder the new cast members. This lures Sidney out from hiding deep in the woods where she lives, and she comes to Hollywood to face the killer for the final act.

 

Scream 3 was released early 2000. Longer gape than the previous film. But Maybe not quite long enough.

 

The problem with Scream 3 is that it had a clever joke threaded through it that got lost in the blur of a new writer trying to make ends meet. What is it? It’s that there’s two mysteries at play:

 

Who is the killer in Scream 3 and who is the killer in Stab 3?

 

There are two Sidney’s, two Gail’s, two Dewey’s. One might be a killer or victim in either.

 

What’s left is a respectable effort all the same. Compared to 90% of slasher films, Scream 3 is still top-notch stuff but there’s a definite sense of boredom on behalf of the returning cast and crew that drowns that enthusiasm of the newcomers.

 

Neve Campbell also seemed tired of going through the motions as it-girl Sidney, who is also (understandbly) sick and tired of being chased by loons in Ghost Face masks.

So a lot rests on the shoulders of Courteney and David, playing ever-bickering Gail and Dewey, this time split up and reunited on set after Cotton Weary is slain in the pre-credits slaughterhouse, which is one of my favorite sequences in film film

 

Fictional follow-up Stab 3: Return to Woodsboro is immediately thrown into jeopardy by the news, which pulls in Hollywood detective, played by Patrick Dempsey, and his sarcastic partner.

Meanwhile, Sidney is hidden away in the Californian wilderness with her dog and a dial-in job as a crisis counsellor.

 

A second murder shuts down the film and the killer manages to contact Sidney, who takes the bait and joins her old buddies to once and for all find out who the fuck is dicking with her and end the madness.

 

The subtlety of the first two films is out the window as almost every utterance by the new cast members is tainted with suspicion. Even with the after-thought cameo by Randy, the cast seem oblivious to horror movie rules and split up time and time again once they’ve been gathered in a Beverly Hills mansion for the homerun.

 

Still, there are some great touches:

 

Sidney’s exploration of the set of her old house nicely echoes events of the film original and once the killer reveals them self and spits out another long-winded motive (you gotta wonder why these guys spent so much time trying to kill her if all along they planned on giving a lecture on the whys, hows and whos?) she fights hard, even saying she doesn’t care about the reasons as she’s heard it all before.

 

Parker Posey supplies some good comic moments as Gale’s fictional counterpart who thinks she can do a better job of investigating and then cementing herself to Gale’s side when the killer targets her.

 

The other actors and crew members of Stab 3 fulfil their marginal walking-corpse roles without much ado. They exist purely to say a couple of witty things and then die.

 

As usual, cameos from industry friends are littered throughout: Jay and Silent Bob turn up (with Craven in the background); the Carrie Fisher exchange is fittingly amusing. And Lance Hendrickson playing a slightly larger, but vastly fulfilling roll as the producer of the Stab films.

 

The film also felt the force of a screen-violence clampdown in the wake of the Columbine massacre in 1999 and the amount of carnage on show is reduced from the first two, with quick cuts away from fatal slashes and stabbings or attacks obscured by the position of the camera or people/objects in the frame.

 

At the time this film came out, I wasn't the biggest fan of it. But over time, it grew on me. I always thought it was better than Scream 2, but then, just by slightly. Now I look at the film, and see it as what it was trying to be.

 

It was trying to close out the franchise, and leave viewers and fans with a sense of closure. And I think the film does do that nicely.

 

Till Next Time Kiddies....

 

-RJ