The Scream series became a popular series with critics and audience due to the fact it was a self-aware slasher film that knew the clichés of the genres whilst still working as a slasher film. But the third film of the series is considered the weak link of the franchise.
After the events of the Woodsboro and Windsor College, a third film is being made in Hollywood to complete a trilogy. But a new killer is stalking has donned the Ghostface mark, targeting both the film cast and survivors of the Woodsboro killings, leading to Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) and her ex-boyfriend, Dewey (David Arquette) to investigate as Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) is forced out of hiding after she suffers from visions of her deceased mother.
The Scream series has always had a self-aware/meta element to it, but with Scream 3 its satire is taken a step too far as it takes jabs against Hollywood. The big jokes are about the production include constant re-writes to the film suffers, an actress saying she is playing a character that is 14 years younger then her, a music video director forced to make Stab 3 as his directional debut before he can make the film he wants, actors having to sleep with people to get roles and producers debating violence in films influencing real-life violence. The film just got too meta as an actor and the person she is meant to be playing arguing and talking about the rules of a trilogy. This is a film was much more focused on being a satire on Hollywood as a whole then a spoof of the horror genre.
Tonally Scream 3 is lighter then previous films. There was always a comic undercurrent to the series, but it becomes much more pronounced in Scream 3 with the characters interactions and the deaths themselves were less gruesome and more over-the-top, particularly with a house getting blown up which was done in a unrealistic way and there is a sequence when Ghostface throws hi s knife and the handle hits Dewey on the head. There was even an occasional comical musical moments in score and a very overt cameo from the characters Jay and Silent Bob.
I found the best bits were when Scream 3 was more serious, when we see Sidney living an isolated life in the countryside, with tons of security and works as a women's crisis counsellor: it felt like a good continuous to her story. But it does not blend well with the more comic tone and the film as a whole was struggling to justify her presence in the film. There are long period where she is not involved in the film, she is not involved at all in the first act and forces a reason to be in the film.
Much of the problems of the lay at the feet of the new writer Ehren Kruger who replaced Kevin Williamson. It felt like Kruger was trying to copy Williamson's style and directed Wes Craven wanted to remake New Nightmare. The characters did feel a little compared to the previous movies and the satire/self-aware elements of the film was not as sharp to the first two movies.
The acting also felt weak, with many of the actors either phoning in their performances or shouting and screaming, including a scene where the Stab actors end up acting clichéd horror victims/targets.
Whilst Craven's directing is solid for the most part, a big criticism some of the sequences involving Ghostface's attacks looks like there was more then one killer, but the conclusion shows there was only one killer.
At the time Scream 3 was originally meant to be a conclusion for the series and it was a disappointment due to poor script and overly comic tone. It is not the worst film, it's not even bad by horror standards. There are good moments, but it is disloyal to certain aspects of the previous films, including the character revisions, which you would have thought Craven would have noticed.
After the events of the Woodsboro and Windsor College, a third film is being made in Hollywood to complete a trilogy. But a new killer is stalking has donned the Ghostface mark, targeting both the film cast and survivors of the Woodsboro killings, leading to Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) and her ex-boyfriend, Dewey (David Arquette) to investigate as Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) is forced out of hiding after she suffers from visions of her deceased mother.
The Scream series has always had a self-aware/meta element to it, but with Scream 3 its satire is taken a step too far as it takes jabs against Hollywood. The big jokes are about the production include constant re-writes to the film suffers, an actress saying she is playing a character that is 14 years younger then her, a music video director forced to make Stab 3 as his directional debut before he can make the film he wants, actors having to sleep with people to get roles and producers debating violence in films influencing real-life violence. The film just got too meta as an actor and the person she is meant to be playing arguing and talking about the rules of a trilogy. This is a film was much more focused on being a satire on Hollywood as a whole then a spoof of the horror genre.
Tonally Scream 3 is lighter then previous films. There was always a comic undercurrent to the series, but it becomes much more pronounced in Scream 3 with the characters interactions and the deaths themselves were less gruesome and more over-the-top, particularly with a house getting blown up which was done in a unrealistic way and there is a sequence when Ghostface throws hi s knife and the handle hits Dewey on the head. There was even an occasional comical musical moments in score and a very overt cameo from the characters Jay and Silent Bob.
I found the best bits were when Scream 3 was more serious, when we see Sidney living an isolated life in the countryside, with tons of security and works as a women's crisis counsellor: it felt like a good continuous to her story. But it does not blend well with the more comic tone and the film as a whole was struggling to justify her presence in the film. There are long period where she is not involved in the film, she is not involved at all in the first act and forces a reason to be in the film.
Much of the problems of the lay at the feet of the new writer Ehren Kruger who replaced Kevin Williamson. It felt like Kruger was trying to copy Williamson's style and directed Wes Craven wanted to remake New Nightmare. The characters did feel a little compared to the previous movies and the satire/self-aware elements of the film was not as sharp to the first two movies.
The acting also felt weak, with many of the actors either phoning in their performances or shouting and screaming, including a scene where the Stab actors end up acting clichéd horror victims/targets.
Whilst Craven's directing is solid for the most part, a big criticism some of the sequences involving Ghostface's attacks looks like there was more then one killer, but the conclusion shows there was only one killer.
At the time Scream 3 was originally meant to be a conclusion for the series and it was a disappointment due to poor script and overly comic tone. It is not the worst film, it's not even bad by horror standards. There are good moments, but it is disloyal to certain aspects of the previous films, including the character revisions, which you would have thought Craven would have noticed.