The Skulls III (2003) (V)

Director:

J. Miles Dale

Writers (WGA):

John Pogue (film The Skulls)
Joe Johnson (written by)

Release Date:

23 March 2004 (USA)

Genre:

Thriller

Tagline:

Blackmail, lies, murder...How far will she go to fit in?

Plot:

A young college co-ed tries joining the elite, all-male, secret society, the Skulls, and in so doing, she uncovers some unscrupulous methods used by some of the members to get what they want.

Plot Keywords:

College | Secret Society | Sequel

Awards:

2 nominations

Cast

Clare Kramer	...	Taylor Brooks
Bryce Johnson	...	Roger Lloyd
Barry Bostwick	...	Nathan Lloyd
Steve Braun	...	Brian Kelly
Karl Pruner	...	Martin Brooks
Dean McDermott	...	Det. Staynor
Maria del Mar	...	Det. Valdez
Len Cariou	...	Dean Lawton
Brooke D'Orsay	...	Veronica Bell
Shaun Sipos	...	Ethan Rawlings
Chris Trussell	...	Conrad
David Purchase	...	Killebrew
Toby Proctor	...	Sam Brooks
Martha Burns	...	Swim Coach
Alison Sealy-Smith	...	Dr. Franks

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for violence.

Runtime:

102 min

Country:

Canada

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

Netherlands:12 | Iceland:16 | Finland:K-15 | Argentina:13 | Australia:M | Norway:15 | Singapore:PG | Sweden:15 | UK:12 | USA:PG-13

Filming Locations:

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Company:

Newmarket Capital Group

Goofs:

Factual errors: Towards the end of the movie, Taylor Brooks dials 911 on a cell phone to allow the police to overhear Nathan Lloyd's plot, but she never presses the "send" button on the phone, so there is no way it would've connected to 911's service. You hear the beeps for 9-1-1, but no beep for send...

Quotes:

Roger Lloyd: Stand up. Shed the last symbols of your old life. Remove your clothes.
[everyone looks around unsure]
Nathan Lloyd: Stand up! Hesitate and you'll never see this place again.
[Brian and some of the other guys look at Taylor, waiting to see what she does about this]
Taylor Brooks: All right, boys. You heard the man.
[pulls off her shirt]
Taylor Brooks: No time to be shy.

Movie Connections:

References Alice in Wonderland (1951)

Soundtrack:

That's What The Thrill Really Is (instrumental version)

I can't believe I waited my entire life to be a Skull!

***SPOILERS*** Back for a third time "The Skulls III" has more or less the usual kind of story-line that the previous two Skull movies had with a bunch of young collage students running around the town at midnight, in one case with only their underwear on, doing all kinds of wild and crazy things to qualify as future Skulls. The only difference in Skulls III is that this time a young women Taylor Brooks, Clare Kramer,is allowed to become a Skull, if she can cut the mustard, and it's that slight variation that makes Skulls III watchable, especially when Taylor takes her clothes off.

Getting a bit ahead of itself the movie starts with Taylor being interrogated at the local police station about a murder that was committed the night before. Spilling her guts out Taylor tells Detectives Staynor & Valdez, Dean McDermott & Maia del Mar,about living with the thought of her brother's Sam, Toby Proctor, suicide and how she has nightmares about it. It was Taylor who discovered Sam's body.

As Taylor tells her story to the police we start to get an idea of how she ended up where we see her now, a suspect in a murder case. Taylor bucked the system by wanting to be a Skull and even worse she had her father Congressman Martin Brooks ,Ken Pruner, go against the the very motto of that secret organization that The Skulls stand and pledge their careers reputations and lives for:"A Skull Above Any Other".

As in the last two Skull movies The Skulls in Skulls III are anything but the powerful and omnipresent Boggie Men that their made out to be but a bunch of clumsy and incompetent boobs who can't get anything done right.

The core of the movie has really nothing at all to do with Taylor or her getting tapped to become a Skull, the first woman in that exclusive club. The film has to do with the goings on behind the scenes of big time businessman, Nathen Llyod ,Barry Bostwick, who needs Congressman Brooks' vote to get his company, Llyods Communications, to have all the telecommunications contracts for the US military. Congressman Brooks, a man of conscience, knows that "Llyods Communications" is incompatible with the US Army Navy and Air Force's telecommunication systems and would result in countless deaths of American soldiers if a war ever breaks out.

It turns out that Taylor's induction into The Skulls was a plan cooked up by Llyod to get her into a compromising position and use it to blackmail both her and her father to do what Llyod want's from him; vote for his company to get he military contract that would result in billions of dollars going into his pocket.

Getting Taylor drunk and on drugs at a Skull party at Llyod's mansion Llyod also used Taylor's computer to E-mail her boyfriend Ethan ,Shaun Sipos,to show up there in order to meet her, about becoming a Skull, and then have him murdered with all the evidence rigged in order to implicate Taylor.

Predictable ending with Llyod using all his influence as a Skull to get Taylor's new boyfriend Brian ,Steve Braun, to entrap her by acting as if he's trying to help Taylor in finding Ethen's murderer. Llyod's entire plan falls apart when his son Roger,Bryce Johnson, finds out the truth that it was his father who not only murdered Ethan but tried at first to frame both Brian, in order to get him to set up Taylor, for the killing and then had him betray the totally innocent Taylor.

Being the jerk that he is Llyod spills the beans on himself in his involvement in Ethan's murder to both Brian and Taylor not knowing that Taylor secretly dialed her cell-phone to 9/11 and had the police listen in hearing what turned out to be Llyod's confession!

The movie "The Skulls III" looks like the final nail in the coffin of the Skull saga. With The Skulls looking so ridicules and brainless that no one with even half a brain would ever wan't to join that lame-brain organization again. The Skulls thankfully went out of business due to lack of interest in the the fact that anyone in the entire country who has any amount of brains in his Skull would not be idiotic enough to join a blockhead club like that.