Scream 3

Poor l’il Sydney has moved to L.A. and isolated herself from the outside world. In the meantime, the third movie based on her life, called STAB 3, is being filmed in and around the Hollywood lots. It isn’t until the actual cast members of the film start getting killed in real life, that Sydney decides that it’s time to come back out into the world and face up to her past…and a nutjob who goes by the name of ghostface!

The end of this trilogy is a solid hit on all counts with plenty of suspense, intrigue, bloody murders, big boobies and cool in-jokes to satisfy any SCREAM fan who had been patiently tolerating all of the lame-brain wannabees over the past few years. This one kept me and my buddy guessing about the killer the whole way through, and with typical Craven pinnache, everyone in the cast seemed to be a suspect at some point or another. Of course, I won’t spoil it for you, but suffice it to say that I was satisfied with the conclusion, and certainly didn’t guess it before it was revealed. It was definitely a much better finale than the lame one that the sequel had tossed our way a few years back. The cast in this film was another thumb up, with everyone involved doing their share to make this film as authentic as any other. This time around, most of the story seemed to center around the Cox and Arquette characters, and both actors came through on their respective counts. In fact, Arquette and Parker Posey are both excellent in this film, with each one coming up just enough laughs to keep things light between killings. Jenny McCarthy also clocked in a decent performance alongside her boobs who delivered their lines perfectly while demonstrating great versatility and range.

The twists and turns in the film were also well handled and intelligently written, and will likely leave the proverbial scary movie “that doesn’t make any sense” complaints outside the theater. The big opening scene is just that…a big opening scene, which lives up to its predecessors and delivers the bloody goods as always. Overall, I guess I am also kind of glad that this will be the final one because it is a very good movie, and I would rather remember this trilogy as just that, instead of it turning into a tired ol’ parody of itself over and over and over again. In fact, that’s probably the only thing that I did hold against this film, and that is the fact that despite it being an original tale set among actual Hollywood soundstages, the overall framework of the movie is basically the same. Ghostface wants to kill Sydney…ghostface kills others who get in the way…now let’s guess who ghostface is. Thankfully, they ended the trilogy on a real high note with this winner.

And contrary to some initial reports, the violence in this film is still all there, in fact, I got the impression that this installment had an even higher body count than either one of its previous incarnations…but don’t quote me on that. The pacing was also solid with a little setup, some action, some blood, some background story, more action, more murders and so on and so forth. Pretty neat if you dig that kind of shtuff. The one thing that is for sure is that you definitely have to be a fan of the first two movies to truly enjoy this one. In fact, I would suggest re-watching them both before checking this one out, cause this is definitely a continuation of the story, and many references to the previous films abound. All in all, this scary movie is the perfect bookend to the successful trilogy that jumpstarted the teen horror genre back in the late 90s. It’s packed with murders, humor, suspense, cheap scares, pretty girls, hip dialogue and a legitimately surprise ending. Sound like something you’d like? Well what are you waiting for then…get out there and scream your ass off! And what is your favorite scary movie??

(c) 2021 Berge Garabedian