261 Days of Horror, Day 50: Scream 3
Mar. 9th, 2007 05:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yendiScream 3. 2000. Directed by Wes Craven. Written by Ehren Kruger. Distributed by Dimension.
So, why go straight to Scream 3, skipping part 2? Scream 2 is a good slasher movie, a nice follow-up to the first movie that doesn't break new ground, but which tells a compelling story and offers a few nice looks at the nature of sequels. It's Scream 3, however, which attempts to bring the plotline from the first movie to a close. And in doing so, it creates an awful mess that wastes a great cast and some wonderful kill scenes on a retcon-filled plot that would embarrass the most talentless Marvel Comics hack*.
I'll start at the middle of the film, as that's where we get the overt statement that Scream 3 is meant to be a piece of crap to begin with. About halfway through, with enough bodies piling up that every character knows that something's going on, we get a surprise appearance by previously-unseen Heather Matarazzo, who turns out the be the sister of film geek Randy, dead as of the second movie. Having a sense that he was going to die, he left a videotape for Sidney and the other survivors.
Before I even get to the contents of that tape, let's talk about the very existence of it. Randy, who had no fucking expectations of death back in the second movie (he was taken by surprise, and had had less than a day to really be convinced that something funny was going on), recorded a "if you're seeing this, that means I'm dead" tape. He presumably did this, then, sometime after the first movie (when he had more time, but not thinking that there was a chance of any new killers), and left instructions to his sister to only show it to the other folks if he died, but not immediately after his death, but years later, when another killing spree has started. Un-fucking-real.
But that's not half as bad as Randy's rules. He explains that in the third part of a trilogy, anyone can die (fair enough), the past isn't safe (more on that later), and that the killer is superhuman and it'll take a ludicrous amount of stuff to kill him.
Let's face it: there simply aren't many horror trilogies. Many horror series make it to part 3, but as Randy notes, that's not the same thing. So why the hell should there be any "rules" covering such unbroken ground in the first place? Even if we buy the rules, why the hell would the killer gain supernatural strength and be unkillable? The Scream series has never been about nigh-zombies like Jason and Freddy; it's always been about ordinary humans. There's never been a whiff of the supernatural in this universe, so why would that be a factor here? Fortunately, that rule pretty much gets ignored in this movie anyway (unless you consider bulletproof vests to be an example of this "rule" in action).
The "past not being safe" rule is what really bothers me. I'm fine when we're talking about adding to events in the past (as Scream 2 did with Billy's mom). But the ludicrous notion that a young kid who would also turn out to be Sidney's half-brother (from when her mom was a slutty** actress instead of a slutty housewife) could have found a way to manipulate Stu and Billy so well that they never caught on? Nope. Not buying it, not least because accepting it makes Scream a lesser movie. We're not just challenging assumptions here; we're challenging the very performances that we witnessed onscreen.
With the rule and its inevitable outcome so inherently flawed, it's hard to remember that there are actually some good moments in this movie. Alas, most of them are set pieces (as was the case with the first movie), but they're damned fine ones. The opening scene, featuring the murder of Cotton Weary (exonerated murderer from the first movie) and his girlfriend, is stylishly shot, features some damned fine acting, and nicely notes the silliness of the voice-changing boxes that everyone in the entire Screamiverse seems to have access to. It seems to set a great tone for the finale, but things go downhill from there.
In fairness, the original plot that Kevin Williamson wanted to play with was set back in the same high school as the first movie, but an overreaction to the Columbine massacre, combined with Williamson's heavy workload, led to the lesser Hollywood plotline written by third-rate (but wonderfully-named) screenwriter Ehren Kruger, who managed to pen the only screenplay that Terry Gilliam couldn't turn into a good movie***.
So, for the second straight Scream movie, we open with the knowledge that there's yet another movie being made based on one of Gale Weathers's books about the murders. And we start with Gale and Dewey once again estranged, because that's what they do every time. And we see the members of the cast and other folks (like Patrick Warburton's bodyguard character) get killed. And we get the "revelation" that the force behind it is the evil director named Roman, because certainly no one would have picked a guy who shares a rare first name and a profession with a convicted rapist as the bad guy.
Actually, let's digress for a second here and talk about the cutesy naming in general. In the first movie, we had a few witty names (Loomis, etc) that were aimed at horror fans. Now, we get "Hollywood" jokes with characters named things like Jolie and Angelina (separate characters, mind you) and Prinze. That's cute in a C-movie like Sleepaway Camp 2, but masturbatory in a studio release like Scream 3. Ditto moments like the Jay and Silent Bob cameos (although the Carrie Fisher and Roger Corman ones are handled more effectively).
The denouement, featuring bulletproof vests, secret passages, the first victim in the entire series who runs without fighting back, and the explanation of the incredibly silly backstory positing Roman as the Evil Mastermind and Sidney's brother, looks like it was shot in about one take from a script that had been pieced together from random sheets of paper found in the studio shredder. It's sloppy, rushed, and manages to kill what small momentum the movie had going for it.
Scream 3 isn't the endcap to a trilogy; it's the movie that killed the momentum of its own series (it was the first to fail to break $100 million), and it helped kill the entire slasher genre that the original Scream had helped revitalize. Falling prey to its own cliches, it confuses winking at the audience and lame Hollywood satire for the postmodern self-awareness of the previous films. Failing to provide new and interesting commentary on the genre is one thing. Failing to provide an entertaining or even coherent horror movie, on the other hand, is unforgivable.
*Howard Mackie.
**Could someone explain why "slutty" isn't included in the MacOS built-in spell-check? I mean, it has "slitty," which, frankly, sounds a lot dirtier.
***And, in all honesty, I enjoyed his work on The Ring.
So, why go straight to Scream 3, skipping part 2? Scream 2 is a good slasher movie, a nice follow-up to the first movie that doesn't break new ground, but which tells a compelling story and offers a few nice looks at the nature of sequels. It's Scream 3, however, which attempts to bring the plotline from the first movie to a close. And in doing so, it creates an awful mess that wastes a great cast and some wonderful kill scenes on a retcon-filled plot that would embarrass the most talentless Marvel Comics hack*.
I'll start at the middle of the film, as that's where we get the overt statement that Scream 3 is meant to be a piece of crap to begin with. About halfway through, with enough bodies piling up that every character knows that something's going on, we get a surprise appearance by previously-unseen Heather Matarazzo, who turns out the be the sister of film geek Randy, dead as of the second movie. Having a sense that he was going to die, he left a videotape for Sidney and the other survivors.
Before I even get to the contents of that tape, let's talk about the very existence of it. Randy, who had no fucking expectations of death back in the second movie (he was taken by surprise, and had had less than a day to really be convinced that something funny was going on), recorded a "if you're seeing this, that means I'm dead" tape. He presumably did this, then, sometime after the first movie (when he had more time, but not thinking that there was a chance of any new killers), and left instructions to his sister to only show it to the other folks if he died, but not immediately after his death, but years later, when another killing spree has started. Un-fucking-real.
But that's not half as bad as Randy's rules. He explains that in the third part of a trilogy, anyone can die (fair enough), the past isn't safe (more on that later), and that the killer is superhuman and it'll take a ludicrous amount of stuff to kill him.
Let's face it: there simply aren't many horror trilogies. Many horror series make it to part 3, but as Randy notes, that's not the same thing. So why the hell should there be any "rules" covering such unbroken ground in the first place? Even if we buy the rules, why the hell would the killer gain supernatural strength and be unkillable? The Scream series has never been about nigh-zombies like Jason and Freddy; it's always been about ordinary humans. There's never been a whiff of the supernatural in this universe, so why would that be a factor here? Fortunately, that rule pretty much gets ignored in this movie anyway (unless you consider bulletproof vests to be an example of this "rule" in action).
The "past not being safe" rule is what really bothers me. I'm fine when we're talking about adding to events in the past (as Scream 2 did with Billy's mom). But the ludicrous notion that a young kid who would also turn out to be Sidney's half-brother (from when her mom was a slutty** actress instead of a slutty housewife) could have found a way to manipulate Stu and Billy so well that they never caught on? Nope. Not buying it, not least because accepting it makes Scream a lesser movie. We're not just challenging assumptions here; we're challenging the very performances that we witnessed onscreen.
With the rule and its inevitable outcome so inherently flawed, it's hard to remember that there are actually some good moments in this movie. Alas, most of them are set pieces (as was the case with the first movie), but they're damned fine ones. The opening scene, featuring the murder of Cotton Weary (exonerated murderer from the first movie) and his girlfriend, is stylishly shot, features some damned fine acting, and nicely notes the silliness of the voice-changing boxes that everyone in the entire Screamiverse seems to have access to. It seems to set a great tone for the finale, but things go downhill from there.
In fairness, the original plot that Kevin Williamson wanted to play with was set back in the same high school as the first movie, but an overreaction to the Columbine massacre, combined with Williamson's heavy workload, led to the lesser Hollywood plotline written by third-rate (but wonderfully-named) screenwriter Ehren Kruger, who managed to pen the only screenplay that Terry Gilliam couldn't turn into a good movie***.
So, for the second straight Scream movie, we open with the knowledge that there's yet another movie being made based on one of Gale Weathers's books about the murders. And we start with Gale and Dewey once again estranged, because that's what they do every time. And we see the members of the cast and other folks (like Patrick Warburton's bodyguard character) get killed. And we get the "revelation" that the force behind it is the evil director named Roman, because certainly no one would have picked a guy who shares a rare first name and a profession with a convicted rapist as the bad guy.
Actually, let's digress for a second here and talk about the cutesy naming in general. In the first movie, we had a few witty names (Loomis, etc) that were aimed at horror fans. Now, we get "Hollywood" jokes with characters named things like Jolie and Angelina (separate characters, mind you) and Prinze. That's cute in a C-movie like Sleepaway Camp 2, but masturbatory in a studio release like Scream 3. Ditto moments like the Jay and Silent Bob cameos (although the Carrie Fisher and Roger Corman ones are handled more effectively).
The denouement, featuring bulletproof vests, secret passages, the first victim in the entire series who runs without fighting back, and the explanation of the incredibly silly backstory positing Roman as the Evil Mastermind and Sidney's brother, looks like it was shot in about one take from a script that had been pieced together from random sheets of paper found in the studio shredder. It's sloppy, rushed, and manages to kill what small momentum the movie had going for it.
Scream 3 isn't the endcap to a trilogy; it's the movie that killed the momentum of its own series (it was the first to fail to break $100 million), and it helped kill the entire slasher genre that the original Scream had helped revitalize. Falling prey to its own cliches, it confuses winking at the audience and lame Hollywood satire for the postmodern self-awareness of the previous films. Failing to provide new and interesting commentary on the genre is one thing. Failing to provide an entertaining or even coherent horror movie, on the other hand, is unforgivable.
*Howard Mackie.
**Could someone explain why "slutty" isn't included in the MacOS built-in spell-check? I mean, it has "slitty," which, frankly, sounds a lot dirtier.
***And, in all honesty, I enjoyed his work on The Ring.