In honor of the release of Scream 4 this week, I’m declaring it Scream Week here at YNTE. Monday I did a YNTE Horror Night for Scream. Tuesday was Scream 2. Today is Scream 3. Friday, I’m going to gather up as many YNTE writers as I can to go see Scream 4 in theaters, and hopefully by Saturday we’ll have a big metareview of the film from the lot of us.
But today is all about Scream 3. You know how Scream had a tongue-in-cheek attitude toward slasher films, and Scream 2 had a tongue-in-cheek attitude toward slasher sequels? Scream 3 has a tongue-in-cheek attitude toward slasher TRILOGIES.
As always, tons of spoilers ahead. You’ve been warned!
The movie starts with Cotton Weary arguing with his agent over the phone over how the best thing he can book is a cameo in Stab 3, when he gets another call, from a female fan. When he starts flirting with her, though, the voice changes to Ghostface’s, who has clearly upgraded his voice synthesizer technology to allow multiple simulated voices. Ghostface identifies himself as “Someone who would kill to know where Sidney Prescott is”. He threatens to kill Cotton’s girlfriend if he won’t tell her.
Cotton rushes home to try to help her, but Ghostface is already inside the house and is using the voice synthesizer to disguise his voice as Cotton’s. Cotton arrives home in time, but his girlfriend doesn’t trust him and attacks him, unknowing that ghostface is behind her with the knife. Cotton and his girlfriend both get stabbed.
Cotton Weary – main character: dead in 10 minutes. YOU JUST GOT SCREAMED. Also, Liev Schreiber: Best gig you can get is a cameo in Scream 3? Better have an angry discussion with your agent!
Now the movie focuses in on Sidney. She’s living in a house out in the middle of nowhere and is incredibly meticulous about closing and locking all her doors and setting multiple alarms. She’s working under an alias as a phone operator for a women’s help line. I thought after the events of the last film she’d NEED therapy, not be giving it away.
Gale has become a professional blow-hard(COMEDY!), giving speeches at 2/3 full college auditoriums about how if you want to be successful, you have to be a bitch and betray all your friends.
Detective Kincaid shows up to ask her a few questions. Kincaid is played by Patrick Dempsey, who is perhaps best known for his role on Grey’s Anatomy, where he plays sexy surgeon “McDreamy”. Or maybe “McSteamy”. I get the stupid nicknames confused and that show sucks.
McScreamy shows Gale a photograph of a pretty lady that was left at the scene of Cotton’s murder; Gale identifies the woman in the picture as Maureen Prescott, Sidney’s mom.
On the set of “Stab 3″, the director and producers are talking about whether they should shut the movie down. They ask a detective if there’s a connection between the movie and Cotton’s death. The detective replies “He was making a movie called Stab. He WAS STABBED.” Great detective work!
Gale shows up on set and runs into Dewey who is “Technical Advisor” for the film. Guess what! They’re fighting again. She gets thrown off the set where she runs into these two:
Sidney has a nightmare about her mom and decides to leave her well defended fortress to got directly to the source of the murders, because BAD DREAMS AND MURDER ARE EQUALLY THREATENING.
Actress Sarah Darling (Jenny McCarthy) goes to meet Roman, the director. She, like cotton, again complains that Stab 3 is the best thing going for her and that she needs a better agent. She also complains that she’s only in the movie two scenes before she gets killed. Guess what? Her character gets killed in this, her second scene. It’s a little bit too on the nose. Sure, this sort of self-referential winks is sort of a hallmark of the franchise, but this is taking it a bit too far, especially since the joke is in this case that none of the actors want to be doing the movie.
Anyway, like I said, she dies.
Gale and Dewey figure out that people are getting killed in the order they get killed in Stab 3. This has the actress playing Gale in Stab, Jennifer Jolie (played by Parker Posie), very upset. And the fact that Dewey is hanging around Jennifer has her bodyguard (played by Patrick Warburton) very upset.
Roman gets arrested due to having been the last person to talk to Sarah, but we all know Ghostface has a voice synthesizer, so it really could have been anyone on the phone with her. Jennifer says “God, Roman. Remind me never to sleep with him again.” This is the first of a running gag that the only reason any actresses get work in Hollywood is by sleeping with the director. I know what Wes Craven looks like, so I hope this part isn’t meta.
People are dying, so you know what that means: PARTY TIME! The movie got canceled, so the cast throw a wrap party. But as you know, Horror Movie parties generally end up with people dying, and this one is no exception. Ghostface stabs Jennifer’s bodyguard, and one of the actors has a house explode on him.
McScreamy threatens Dewey, telling him to get Sid down to Hollywood. Dewey makes a big deal out of not doing it, only to have her show up moments later.
Sid & the gang go to the movie studio backlot, where they inexplicably run into Randy’s sister. Apparently before he dies in Scream 2, he makes Sid a videotape just in case this exact set of circumstances crops up: him getting killed, them catching the killer, then a few years later, a new killer shows up, and it’s more than just random killings. Man. That dude had FORESIGHT.
Here’s Randy’s message:
If this killer does come back, and he’s for real, there are a few things you’ve got to remember. Is this simply another sequel? If it is, same rules apply. But, here’s the critical thing: if you find yourself dealing with an unexpected backstory and a preponderance of exposition, then the sequel rules do NOT apply, because you are not dealing with a sequel. You are dealing with the concluding chapter of a trilogy. That’s right. It’s a rarity in the horror field, but it does exist. And it’s a force to be reckoned with, because true trilogies are all about going back to the begininng and discovering something that wasn’t true from the get go. Godfather, Jedi, all revealed something we thought was true that wasn’t true. So if it is a trilogy you are dealing with, here are some super trilogy rules:
- You’ve got a killer who’s going to be superhuman. Stabbing him won’t work. Shooting him won’t work. Basically, in the third one, you’ve got to cryrogenically freeze his head, decapitate him, or blow him up.
- Anyone, including the main character, can die. This means you, Sid. I’m sorry! It’s the final chapter! It could be fucking Reservoir Dogs by the time this thing is through!
- The past will come back to bite you in the ass. Whatever you think you know about the past? Forget it. The past is not at rest. Any sins you think were committed in the past are about to break out and destroy you.
So in closing, let me say good luck, godspeed, and for some of you, I’ll see you soon. ‘Cuz the rules say some of you aren’t going to make it. I didn’t, not if you’re watching this tape.
Gale comes up with a great idea, but sends Sid and Dewey off on some useless errand because she “works better alone”. Then, 30 seconds later she lets Jennifer tag along, because apparently one Gale Weathers isn’t annoying enough so the writer put two of them here.
Down in the archives, the Gales meet Bianca, the archive administrator, who looks just like Carrie Fisher, because she’s played by Carrie Fisher. But her character is quick to point out that she is not Carrie Fisher, despite looking identical. She even goes as far as to say that she was up for the role of Princess Leia, but the role went to the girl who slept with George Lucas. Which, ug, gross. I would much rather watch a Wes Craven sex tape than a George Lucas sex tape.
The Gales determine that Maureen Prescott used to be a actress before she married Sidney’s dad, and she worked on the movies of a guy named Milton, who was producing Stab 3.
Sid, by chance, arrives at the set of stab 4, which, I read on the internets, is the one of the actual sets used in Scream. Other than any time we see a cell phone, this movie feels pretty modern, but on one of the walls we see a poster for the band Creed, which really dates the film. Oh, and Ghostface shows up and chases her around the set. I guess the music of Creed was scarier to me.
Dewey and the Gales go to interview Milton, who reveals that Maureen worked on his movies, and she came to some of his “parties” where women would meet men they could have sex with in exchange for parts. At this point we have gone from joke to plot point. If you’re going to make something a plot point, especially the main character’s mom essentially getting raped, and later murdered, maybe don’t introduce it with yuks.
“Sid” calls Dewey and tells him to go to Roman’s birthday party at Milton’s house. Sure, it’s really Ghostface calling, but they don’t know that. At the party, everyone splits up and looks for a secret screening room. Splitting up when there’s a killer on the loose is a good idea!
The killer, one by one, kills Roman, Angelina, Tyson, and Jennifer. Dewey and Real Gale are spared. Of course, this doesn’t stop Dewey from getting stabbed yet again.
Oh, and before she dies, Angelina reveals she fucked old man producer Milton to get a part. I’m not sure if that one was supposed to be a joke or not. Either way, by now the reference is tired.
Sidney finds out that McScreamy didn’t get assigned to her case, he’s been stalking her for years. But before she can ponder that for too long, she gets a call from Ghostface telling her to come to Milton’s house or he’ll kill Dewey and Gale.
She shows up and outside there’s a metal detector wand. The killer tells her to use it all over, and it reveals she had a gun in her right boot, which he makes her throw in the pool. Once she gets inside, she starts untying Dewey and Gale, but the killer shows up. That’s when Sid pulls out the SECOND GUN from the same boot and shoots him four times in the chest.
Then Ghostface mysteriously vanishes when they look away, and moments later McScreamy shows up to investigate. He says he’s here to help, but once again, she doesn’t trust him, which gives the real killer time to stab him and knock him unconsious.
Sid runs away, and eventually finds herself in Milton’s secret screening room. Unfortunately the killer is there too.
The killer reveals himself to be Roman, who faked his death earlier, and was wearing a bulletproof vest, which let him survive the gunshots.
Apparently when Maureen was raped at a casting party, she had a bastard son. When he tried to track her down later she had a new family and rejected him. So Roman started filming her, caught her having sex with Billy Loomis’ dad. He showed Billy the film and that gave Billy the opportunity to kill Maureen and do the events of the first film.
McSteamy wakes up and bursts into the screening room and is immediately hit by a chair by Roman. Sid gets Roman’s knife, but Roman gets McSteamy’s gun and shoots her. She, too was wearing a bulletproof vest though. So she stabs Roman. He gets up one last time, but Dewey shoots him in the head.
In the epilogue, Dewey proposes to Gale, because apparently they like each other again, and marriage will fix their problems?
Also, Sid is dating McScreamy. He was stalking her and she distrusted him to the point he almost died. That is also a firm foundation for a relationship!
The four of them go to watch a movie in the living room of Sid’s mountain fortress of solitude, but the kitchen door swings open. While at the beginning of the film she was scared and meticulous about closing and locking all the doors, she just smiles at it and walks away. It shows character growth.
Or maybe the filmmakers were “leaving the door open” for a sequel. Which comes out tomorrow, and I am FUCKING EXCITED.
Catch up on past installments:
Freddy Vs. Jason
Scream 2
Scream
Red State
April Fool’s Day (1986)
Leprechaun
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
Valentine
Jason X
Jason Goes to Hell – The Final Friday
Friday the 13th Part VII: Jason Takes Manhattan
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