Scream 3’s lackluster screenplay and unimaginative kills leave a film that is a bore to watch.
The meta-narrative of trilogies throughout the film does not make up for how abysmal the plot was. This film creates so much lore for the past movies seemingly out of the blue, muddling up the continuity for shock value. It added very little to this film and felt forced. The entire plot point of Sidney’s mother being a former Hollywood actress was pretty lame, especially with the added plot point of her being sexually assaulted by a movie producer. It may be personal taste, but I absolutely despise when films add that plot point, as it feels incredibly hypocritical since it is something that genuinely happens to an industry, they are involved in. The love triangle between Gale, Dewey, and the Gale actress was pretty dumb and felt undeserved, as we have not seen Gale and Dewey actually together in any of the films.
In horror films, you can have a good movie with a terrible plot as long as the kills are great. Unfortunately, Scream 3 continues the trend of having boring kills with no imagination. There has been only one truly unique kill throughout the entire franchise, and the rest are unbloody stab kills. I understand the meta being about stabbing with a knife, as the in-film movie is called Stab, but please add some gore to it. There is nothing, no blood squirts or body horror, and it caused the entire movie to be boring.
Our performances were exactly how I would describe Scream 2, with both Neve Campbell and Courtney Cox being the standouts and David Arquette being average at best. All of the new characters were pretty uninteresting, all of the actors in the film were annoying, and the movie producers felt generic.
The direction of this film felt pretty uninspired. I am not sure if Wes Craven was forced to make this movie by the studio, but nothing about it felt unique and creative. It felt like he was phoning it in for a paycheck.
Overall, there were not a lot of redeeming qualities for this film, and it left me feeling unfulfilled as the final credits rolled. Hoping Scream IV has more in store for me than this lackluster film.
Score: 45% Verdict: Poor