Scream 3 (2000) | 31 Days of Horror: Oct 3

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Scream, and scream, and scream again.

The modern horror franchise that revitalized the genre returns with its third film, providing more sly commentary on the media and poking further fun at the genre itself. More new actors join the party this time, but does this film have what it takes to stand up to the others?

Before Viewing

The trailer shows all the favorite (surviving) characters from the previous Scream films while setting the rules for a trilogy. In part one, the rules are set. Part two bends the rules. But in the third part, there are no rules! Mayhem, murder, and Mr. Ghostface return in a film that will make you Scream 3 times.

Presented below is the trailer for the film.

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After Viewing

Some time after the events of the previous film, Cotton Weary (Liev Schreiber), now a controversial television talk show host, is called by the Ghostface killer (voice of Roger Jackson) back to his home, where Cotton’s girlfriend, Christine (Kelly Rutherford), is about to be murdered. Ghostface uses a voice-changer device to trick Christine into believing Cotton is attacking her, so when the real Cotton arrives, she attacks him. Both end up being killed by Ghostface. Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) is living outside the spotlight, working from a secluded home as “Laura,” and working on a women’s crisis hotline. Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox) has continued in her journalism career and is now giving talks to college students.

Gale is told by police detective Mark Kincaid (Patrick Dempsey) of Cotton’s death and his involvement in Stab 3: Return to Woodsboro, a sequel to the in-universe films fictionalizing the murders surrounding Sidney’s mother and friends. Sarah Darling (Jenny McCarthy), an actress in the film, is murdered in the production offices when she comes to a meeting with the director. Dewey Riley (David Arquette), who is no longer dating Gale, works as a technical advisor on the Stab sequel, living on the property of actress Jennifer Jolie (Parker Posey), who plays Gale in the film. They realize that the killings are happening in the order of the script, meaning Jennifer is next.

At Jennifer’s house, her bodyguard, Steven Stone (Patrick Warburton), is murdered, and the house explodes from a gas leak, killing actor Tom Prinze (Matt Keeslar). Dewey protects Gale from Ghostface, who appears in the aftermath. Sidney returns to assist Kincaid, having heard about the murders, but also having received a call from Ghostface pretending to be Sidney’s dead mother, Maureen (Lynn McRee). She has also been appearing to Sidney in dreams and visions, and it’s unclear if she’s a figment of Sidney’s imagination. Martha Meeks (Heather Matarazzo), sister to the deceased Randy (Jamie Kennedy), turns up with a videotape he made before his death, offering some tips on surviving a trilogy.

Jennifer joins Gale to investigate the movie studio, where they discover that Sidney’s mother was an actress known as Rina Reynolds. She appeared in three of producer John Milton’s (Lance Henriksen) low-budget horror films. During this exploration, Sidney finds actress Angelina Tyler (Emily Mortimer) hiding in a bathroom with Stab props, including a Ghostface mask. Sidney is then chased through the soundstage recreation of her Woodsboro home by Ghostface, being rescued by Dewey and Kincaid, who take her back to the police station. Dewey, Gale, and Jennifer visit Milton at his office, where he’s trying to calm down Stab 3 director Roman Bridger (Scott Foley) regarding all the killings. Milton remembers “Rina” and admits to being complicit in introducing her to influential men in Hollywood at sex parties he hosted.

On their way out of Milton’s office, Dewey gets a call from Sidney, who says she has gone to Milton’s house for Roman’s birthday party. Once there, Gale and Dewey find Ghostface’s costume and voice-changer before finding Roman’s dead body in a prop coffin. Angelina is then killed, followed by Tyson Fox (Deon Richmond), and Jennifer, who is trapped behind a 2-way mirror in a secret room in Milton’s house. Dewey and Gale are captured by Ghostface, who calls Sidney, giving her a choice to save her friends or let them die.

Sidney arrives at the mansion, and whe

Ghostface appears, she shoots him five times with a hidden pistol pulled from her boot. As per the rules of a trilogy, Ghostface appears superhuman, surviving the shooting, as his body disappears. Kincaid shows up, conveniently making Sidney suspicious, but Ghostface reemerges and injures the detective’s arm. Sidney hides from Ghostface in the secret room, but he finds his way in, revealing that he is Roman–and also Sidney’s half-brother. He helped Stu and Billy kill Maureen in the original film and blames Sidney for his misery of being abandoned by their mother. She stabs Roman, just as Dewey arrives in time to shoot the killer in the head. Later, at Sidney’s house, Dewey proposes to Gale while Sidney and a recuperating Detective Kincard sit down to watch a movie.

“If you find yourself dealing with an unexpected back-story and a preponderance of exposition, then the sequel rules do not apply. Because you’re not dealing with the sequel. You are dealing with the concluding chapter of a trilogy.” – Randy

Scream 3 returns director Wes Craven to another of his popular horror franchises. The Scream franchise, made up of the uninspired titles Scream, Scream 2, and this one, was the second horror series for which Craven directed all of the films (including the 4th installment in 2011), prior to his death. He had also directed both entries in The Hills Have Eyes franchise, but only the first and seventh film in the A Nightmare on Elm Street series. The film continues with the meta-fictional narrative that comments on the horror genre, whilst also being a horror film at the same time. In this sequel, the Stab film-within-a-film series continues. Having been introduced in the opening sequence of Scream 2 as a reaction to the Woodsboro Murders, the “fictional” series has now caught up with the “real” events. And after reading about the issues with the production of the film, the meta-commentary seems to focus on the real issues of this film being shot. Characters working on Stab 3 complain about the multiple scripts, the daily rewrites, and some of the stupid things they are being asked to do. This seems to be a fun nod to the difficulties that the real production for Scream 3 encountered. Let’s hope that’s where the similarities ended.

In 1999, between the 1997 release of Scream 2 and this film, a tragedy occurred in real life. Two high school seniors devised a plan to kill as many of their classmates as possible in a bombing and shooting spree. They ended up killing 13 students, one teacher, and themselves, as well as injuring twenty others at Columbine High School in Colorado. Much discussion reverberated throughout American politics and media about what drove the students to such a heinous act. Besides the obvious discussion topics of gun culture and bullying, people were quick to blame Hollywood, and the Scream franchise was an obvious and easy target. There’s no denying that the popularity of the first film and its eerily similar plot of two teen boys murdering their classmates put it high on a list of films to blame. As such, with the third film getting underway, it’s no wonder the studio became concerned about the content of the new project, asking filmmakers to tone down the violence and bloodshed (and in some cases remove it entirely). We Craven was quoted as saying, “Be serious, guys. Either we make a Scream movie, or we make a movie and call it something else. But if it’s a Scream movie, it’s going to have certain standards.” But there’s no denying that this film feels a bit different. It has more elements of a murder-mystery and less blood and on-screen gore when compared to the previous installments, even though it contains just as many deaths as Scream 2.

The Scream franchise has always used its plot and characters to critique real-world issues via satire. Much of the first film revolved around the tropes of the horror film, from characters saying “I’ll be right back” before getting killed, to characters pointing out the beats of a horror film while intercutting with events matching those points within their reality. Scream 2 continued this analysis, touching on the elements involved in a sequel, but also commenting on the fantastical murder defenses inspired by real-world trials, including those for John Hinckley and O.J. Simpson. Scream 3 goes further, commenting on the state of the film industry in Hollywood, both in front of the camera and behind it. There are moments commenting on the way that the media exploits tragedy for ratings, and how they might even go as far as to make up salacious hypothetical stories about celebrities to garner attention. The female cast members of Stab 3 are all subject to the innuendo that they only achieved their positions by sleeping with someone in charge. Jennifer and others speculate that the only way Angelina could have gotten the lead role in the film was by sleeping with the Producer, though Jennifer chafes at similar accusations cast towards herself. Angelina does later reveal that she indeed slept with Milton to get the part, a Producer who has often thrown sex parties for male power players to hook up with young ingenues. Henrickson’s unrepentance in this part seems eerily familiar to real-world stories that have since come to light about men in positions of power, including Harvey Weinstein, an executive producer of this film. Gale is confronted several times in the course of the film in regard to her journalistic ethics and integrity. The first time is at her speech to college students when a man asks if her advice is to get out there and “cut each other’s throats,” indicating reacting with menace and disrespect towards other reporters. The second is Tom Prinze sarcastically thanking Gale for her “powerful journalism” on his car accident, where she implied that he was drinking and driving. She has excuses for all of these, but for as much as her character changes across the various films, the more she continues to stay the same–reflecting the landscape of modern media culture.

A new Scream film also means a new batch of actors and cameos to enjoy. The new players, all of whom are part of the Stab 3 cast, provide fun moments throughout the film. Jenny McCarthy provides additional meta commentary on being a 35-year-old woman, playing a 21-year-old, and having to be introduced (and die) naked. Emily Mortimer makes her American film debut as the ingenue/starlet in her first starring role as Stab’s version of Sidney. Incidentally, she was originally supposed to be in cahoots with Roman as one of the killers, and elements in the film still point to her as a suspicious character. This was just one of the alterations to the film after the increased oversight by the studio following Columbine. But the standout performance has to go to Parker Posey’s Jennifer Jolie. She pulls off an incredible Courtney Cox impression while still bringing her own sense of quirkiness to the role. This is worth the price of admission, surely making audiences upset that she won’t be able to return in the future. As far as cameo appearances go, this entry takes the cake. The Sunrise Studios executive is played by legendary Producer and Director Roger Corman, playing the kind of character that would produce films such as Amazombies or Creature from the San Andreas Fault, two of the films on Rina Reynold’s resume. Two of the tourists on the studio tour are Jay and Silent Bob (Jason Mewes & Kevin Smith), who mistake Gale for Los Angeles newscaster Connie Chung. Hollywood royalty and renowned script doctor Carrie Fisher appears as Bianca Burnette, an actress who was up for the part of Princess Leia in Star Wars, but lost out to the one who “slept with George Lucas.” But the most satisfying cameo has to be the return of Jamie Kennedy as Randy. Fans (including this one) were upset by his death in Scream 2, yet the filmmakers created a fun little way (however implausible) for him to return to his meta-schtick.

Since the 80s, the measure of success for a franchise has been to become a trilogy. Since the original Star Wars films, having three films showing an arc of characters in different situations is the optimal serving for films, probably due to the American narrative structure of three acts. Of course, some films go beyond that, but as a third film is getting worked on, that always seems like a good place to stop. Scream 3 was planned to be the final act of this franchise (just as Friday the 13th Part III was also planned to end that series (and then Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter was again thought to be the end)), and it was–for eleven years. Wes Craven returned for a fourth Scream film, marking his last directorial outing before his death in 2015. The series would be rebooted (softly) in 2022 with another film entitled Scream, which was followed in 2023 by Scream VI and Scream 7, which is scheduled for early 2026. Scream 3 very much feels a part of the metafictional Scream universe in terms of the commentary on the movie industry and the genre. But it feels a little off on the horror aspect, for several reasons. It’s still worthy of the Scream name, but not the ending of a trilogy that fans may have wanted.

Assorted Musings

• Many of the names of the characters starring in Stab 3 appear to be homages and mashups of popular actors from the era. “Angelina Tyler” represents both Angelina Jolie and Liv Tyler. “Jennifer Jolie” represents both Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie. “Tom Prinze” represents Tom Cruise and Freddie Prinze, Jr. “Tyson Fox” may represent  Tyson Beckford and Matthew Fox (Party of Five).
• Jennifer is told she can “always go back to Must See TV,” which is a reference to the NBC Thursday night primetime slot, which featured Friends, starring both Courtney Cox and Jennifer Aniston.
• Producer John Milton is named after the English poet of the same name who wrote the epic poem, Paradise Lost. This may represent his taking of innocence from many young women in Hollywood, including Maureen Prescott.