Scream 3 (2000)

By the time SCREAM 3 came out, the teen horror flicks of the late 90s were churning out one by one, we were still a few years away from the ‘torture porn’ era, and a new franchise stomped onto the scene to make its presence known (Final Destination). Audiences had already seen much of what the current horror genre had to offer, but that didn’t stop Scream 3 from (trying) to pull out all the stops. To any fan of the franchise, it’s apparent immediately that the tone of this chapter is a lot lighter than the previous. The script had to be rewritten at the last minute as they were about to start filming and then the Columbine high school incident occurred. Due to this, they had to redo and completely take out scenes that would have shown high school kids in violent and aggressive situations. It’s an unfortunate situation that led to this chapter not quite being up to par. There are some great moments found here though. They bring back a popular character from the previous movie to ‘explain the rules’ of a third act in a stroke of genius sort of way. The main reveal that ties storylines together from the original was a surprise even to me who usually tries to figure these things out. However, the tone flip flopped between being too ‘satirical’ and ‘too serious’…the too serious being scenes that dealt with Sidney’s mother and her subconscious. Back to another positive, it is a hoot to spot cameos from other movie stars as well as having two ‘Gales’ try to solve a mystery together. Overall, a decent “end” to the series that brought back old favorites and introduced some new characters (though many of the new characters were not as memorable). However, part of me can’t help but wonder what the original script ideas would have looked like onscreen. They would have brought back a character from the first initially thought dead and had him be pulling the strings from behind the scenes. Now that would have been a glorious surprise in the pre-social media days.

SLASH SCALE: 3.5/5