Scream 3
USA 2000
Reviewed by Kim Newman
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
Hollywood. Cotton Weary, a talk-show host once unjustly convicted of the murder of Maureen Prescott, is killed by someone masked like the murderers who have terrorised Maureen's daughter Sidney. Producer John Milton is working on Stab 3: Return to Woodsboro (the latest film in a series based on the murders that have revolved around Sidney), with music-video director Roman Bridger making his first feature, Dewey Riley working as a technical advisor and actresses Jennifer Jolie and Angelina Tyler cast as real-life figures Gale Weathers, a news reporter, and Sidney.
When actors Sarah Darling and Tom Prinze and a security expert are killed, Stab 3 is shut down. Gale digs further into the story and Sidney comes to help. It turns out that Maureen was once a starlet at the studio, leaving Hollywood after an orgy at one of Milton's parties. At Roman's birthday party, the killer strikes again, murdering Roman, supporting actor Tyson Fox, and Jennifer and Angelina. Sidney confronts the masked maniac, who turns out to be Roman (who faked his own death), her long-lost half-brother. Having prompted the original Woodsboro killings, he has been taking his rage out on the family he feels cheated out of. Sidney kills Roman.
Review
In one of the wittiest moments in Scream 2, film nerd Randy, explaining the rules of sequels, wound up his argument with "and if you want your sequel to turn into a franchise, never ever ..." only to have his thought cut off before his wisdom could be delivered. Randy pops up again here via a video-diary entry. Explaining what happens when your sequel turns into a trilogy, Randy tells us to expect any character could be the killer and survivors from the earlier instalments will end up dead. Sadly, Scream 3 is not nearly ruthless enough to go through with this delicious warning/promise.
With original screenwriter Kevin Williamson now pursuing a directorial career, series director Wes Craven is here partnered by screenwriter Ehren Kruger (Arlington Road). There's a sense that Craven's emotional investment was in his significantly named 'personal' project Music of the Heart, completed last year, leaving this to come together by itself. Has Sidney Prescott been so abused in two Scream movies that she has herself become the new killer? Is her dead mother, whose murder kicked the whole thing off, coming back as a ghost to add a supernatural twist? Will Riley and Gale, fake-killed several times in the earlier entries, finally die for real, or get to be unmasked as the secret fiends behind it all? The disappointing revelation here is that a new character with far less dramatic weight than the killers in the first two films is guilty, and Sidney gets to gun him down for a pat wrap-up.
The Hollywood setting allows for a pleasant succession of in-references and gags. Jenny McCarthy has a great set-up-for-death speech as she complains about being a 35-year-old playing a 21-year-old who takes a shower before getting killed, and there's a neat cameo from Carrie Fisher as a studio functionary who claims not to have won the part of Princess Leia because she didn't sleep with George Lucas. The best thing in the film is the bickering between Cox Arquette's Gale and Parker Posey as the Method actress who thinks she's better at being Gale than Gale herself. With the exception of a chase through a soundstage, Craven rarely exploits the potential for suspense of his Hollywood setting. Mostly, his visual imagination seems stretched thin; the stalk-and-slash scenes are directed merely with anonymous competence. A warning to the avaricious: if Randy the movie geek has left another video testament, it might well cite Omen IV and Halloween IV through H20 as dire examples of what happens when your trilogy is complete but the producers go back to the well. If you want your trilogy to become a franchise, make something grander than Scream 3.
Credits
- Director
- Wes Craven
- Producers
- Cathy Konrad
- Kevin Williamson
- Marianne Maddalena
- Screenplay
- Ehren Kruger
- Based on characters created by
- Kevin Williamson
- Director of Photography
- Peter Deming
- Editor
- Patrick Lussier
- Production Designer
- Bruce Alan Miller
- Music
- Marco Beltrami
- ©Miramax Film Corp.
- Production Companies
- Dimension Films presents a Konrad Pictures production in association with Craven/Maddalena Films
- Executive Producers
- Bob Weinstein
- Harvey Weinstein
- Cary Granat
- Andrew Rona
- Co-executive Producer
- Stuart M. Besser
- Co-producers
- Dan Arredondo
- Dixie J. Capp
- Julie Plec
- Associate Producer
- Nicholas C. Mastandrea
- 2nd Unit Production Supervisor
- Lisa Becker
- Production Co-ordinator
- Lori Spall
- Unit Production Manager
- Stuart M. Besser
- Location Managers
- Robert Decker
- Ilt Jones
- Post-production Co-ordinator
- Tina Anderson
- 2nd Unit Director
- Rick Avery
- Assistant Directors
- Nicholas C. Mastandrea
- Dan Arredondo
- Maria Mantia
- Michelle Jaeger
- 2nd Unit:
- Rosemary Cremona
- Script Supervisor
- Sheila G. Waldron
- Casting
- Lisa Beach
- Associate:
- Sarah Katzman
- ADR Voice:
- L.A. MadDogs
- 2nd Unit Director of Photography
- Paul Hughen
- Camera Operators
- Paul Hughen
- Additional:
- Mark Ludwig
- Steadicam Operator
- Mark R. Van Loon
- Wescam Operator
- John Trapman
- Digital Visual Effects
- Pixel Magic
- Visual Effects Supervisor:
- Ray McIntyre Jr
- Compositing Supervisor:
- Reid Paul
- Digital Compositors:
- Patrick Murphy
- Bruce Harris
- Digital Film I/O Supervisor:
- Victor Dimichina
- Special Visual Effects
- Fantasy II Film Effects
- Visual Effects Supervisor:
- Gene Warren Jr
- Visual Effects Producer:
- Leslie Huntley
- Miniature Photography:
- Christopher Warren
- Pyrotechnic Supervisor:
- Joseph Viskocil
- Pyrotechnicians:
- Robert Ahmanson
- Joe Heffernan
- Robert Hutchins
- Thomas Zell
- Model Makers:
- Bryan MacLaren
- Anita Osterhage
- Mick Persion
- Optical Supervisor:
- Betzy Bromberg
- Camera Operator:
- David Tucker
- Roto Supervisor:
- Bret Mixon
- Digital Supervisor:
- Tim Molinder
- Digital Artist:
- Kieran Carew
- Special Effects
- Co-ordinator:
- Ron Bolanowski
- Foreman:
- William D. Lee
- Graphics Designer
- Steven Samanen
- Art Director
- Tom Fichter
- Set Designers
- Nancy Deren
- Anthony D. Parrillo
- Barbara Ann Spencer
- Sloane U'ren
- Set Decorator
- Gene Serdena
- Storyboard Artist
- Raymond Consing
- Costume Designer
- Abigail Murray
- Costume Supervisor
- Eden Coblenz
- Department Head Make-up
- Carol Schwartz
- Make-up Artist
- Lesa Nielson
- Department Head Hair
- Kathrine Gordon
- Hairstylist
- Hazel Catmull
- Main Title Design
- Grady Cofer
- Robert Dawson
- Digital Main Titles
- Digiscope
- End Titles/Opticals
- Pacific Title/Mirage
- Background Vocals
- Rose Thomson
- Synth Preparation
- Buck Sanders
- Orchestra Conductors
- Marco Beltrami
- Pete Anthony
- Orchestrations
- Pete Anthony
- Bill Boston
- Jon Kull
- Kevin Kliesch
- Frank Bennett
- Jeff Atmajian
- Kevin Manthei
- Marco Beltrami
- Music Supervisor
- Ed Gerrard
- Score Producer
- Marco Beltrami
- Executive Music Producer
- Randy Spendlove
- Music Editors
- Bill Abbott
- Adam Kay
- Scoring Mixer
- John Kurlander
- Midi Consultant
- Thomas Bartke
- Soundtrack
- "What If", "Is This the End" by Mark Tremonti, Scott Stapp, performed by Creed; "Red Right Hand 2" by Nick Cave, Michael John Harvey, Thomas Wydler, performed by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds; "So Real" by/performed by Static X; "Spiders" by Baron Malakian, Seri Tankian, performed by System of a Down; "Sunburn" by Carl Bell, performed by Fuel; "Click Click" by David Arquette, Gabriel Cowan, Sam Music, performed by Ear2000; "Suffocate" by James Black, Scott Anderson, Sean Anderson, Arnold Lanni, performed by Finger Eleven; "Automatic" by Kevin Quinn, Noah Shain, performed by American Pearl
- Sound Design
- Todd Toon
- Sound Mixer
- Jim Stuebe
- Re-recording Mixers
- Andy D'Addario
- Tim Chau
- Dubbing Recordists
- Neal Porter
- Chris Sparkes
- Supervising Sound Editor
- Todd Toon
- Sound Editors
- Albert Gasser
- Piero Mura
- John Kwiatkowski
- David Kern
- Don Malouf
- ADR
- Recordist:
- Jeannette Browning
- Mixer:
- Doc Kane
- Supervising Editor:
- G.W. Brown
- Editor:
- Howell Gibbens
- Foley
- Artist:
- Dan O'Connell
- Mixer:
- John Cucci
- Stunt Co-ordinator
- Rick Avery
- Animals Provided by
- Birds & Animals Unlimited
- Animal Handlers
- Stacy Basil
- Cheryl Harris
- Cast
- David Arquette
- Dwight 'Dewey' Riley
- Neve Campbell
- Sidney Prescott
- Courteney Cox Arquette
- Gale Weathers
- Patrick Dempsey
- Detective Mark Kincaid
- Scott Foley
- Roman Bridger, the director
- Lance Henriksen
- John Milton
- Matt Keeslar
- Tom Prinze
- Jenny McCarthy
- Sarah Darling
- Emily Mortimer
- Angelina Tyler
- Parker Posey
- Jennifer Jolie
- Deon Richmond
- Tyson Fox
- Kelly Rutherford
- Christine
- Liev Schreiber
- Cotton Weary
- Patrick Warburton
- Steven Stone
- Jamie Kennedy
- Randy Meeks
- Beth Toussaint
- female caller
- Roger L. Jackson
- 'the voice'
- Julie Janney
- moderator
- Richmond Arquette
- student
- Lynn McRee
- Maureen Prescott
- Nancy O'Dell
- female reporter
- Ken Taylor
- male reporter
- Roger Corman
- studio executive
- Josh Pais
- Detective Wallace
- John Embry
- stage security guard
- Lawrence Hecht
- Neil Prescott
- Lisa Beach
- studio tour guide
- Kevin Smith
- Silent Bob
- Jason Mewes
- Jay
- Erik Erath
- Stan
- D.K. Arredondo
- office security guard
- Lisa Gordon
- waitress
- Heather Matarazzo
- Martha Meeks
- Carrie Fisher
- Bianca Burnette
- C.W. Morgan
- Hank Loomis
- Certificate
- 18
- Distributor
- Buena Vista International (UK)
- 10,505 feet
- 116 minutes 44 seconds
- Dolby digital/Digital DTS sound/SDDS
- Colour by
- FotoKem
- Prints by
- DeLuxe
- Anamorphic [Panavision]