With Kevin Williamson claiming his Scream franchise was always conceived as a trilogy, surely Scream 3 would be his opportunity to shepherd his greatest creation to its perfect…
Kevin Williamson didn’t write Scream 3. Instead, the man was busy failing to upgrade his career, by directing Teaching Mrs. Tingle and creating a tremendously unsuccessful TV show I only now become aware of, called “Wasteland.” This is a more pronounced example of Williamson’s “Dawson’s Creek”-based distraction while trying to write Scream 2. Armed only with Williamson’s story notes, penning Scream 3 fell to Ehren Kruger, whose subsequent Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and The Dark of the Moon doesn’t augur well. And somehow, despite a two-year cushion following Scream 2, 3’s production was even more messed up, with Kruger forced to deliver script rewrites all day every day. No doubt the final product seems aimless and unsure of itself, even as a simple thriller, to say nothing of Scream 3’s inability to have any deeper post-modernist point.
But wait, the problems don’t stop there! Williamson wasn’t the only one disillusioned by more Screams forever and ever; star Neve Campbell was nearly done with these things, and somehow got her contract to stipulate a maximum of thirty days filming. Add another onus to Kruger’s incapable neck, as Sidney Prescott’s (Campbell’s character) involvement in Scream 3 can only be minimal – but is still enough the movie can’t completely alter the focus. This increases Scream 3’s directionlessness.
Funny that Kruger serves director Wes Craven so poorly, when Kreuger did him so well. Though Craven clearly doesn’t care either. Given $40 million of Miramax’s money (somehow these things count as independent movies), he’s content to not even make a horror movie – with endlessly non-gothic, non-scary settings, murders staged as action sequences and edited to the bejesus, and bigger goddamn explosions than in a Bourne movie. Undoubtedly his schmaltzy Music of the Heart (the making of which legally necessitated Craven make Scream 3) is more frightening. At least they still get to advertize Scream 3 as being from “Master of horror Wes Craven,” the same genius behind The Hills Have Eyes II and Vampire in Brooklyn.
Further exacerbating the predicament, Scream 3 probably couldn’t have been a horror movie even if it wanted to. The MPAA was notoriously down on horror cinema in the ‘90s, demanding the first Scream get recut eight times to avoid the NC-17. And the Screams are among the less grotesque slasher movies. By the time of Scream 3, watchdogs literally demanded Craven not depict a single murder in a franchise defined by depicting murder. Scream 3 isn’t quite that worthless, yet what remains is about as incomprehensible as Friday the 13th Part VII. Allegedly, because Scream violence is realistically achievable (indeed, occasionally some real life asshole dons a Ghostface mask and stabs some fool, which does no one any favors), it is less allowable than, say, casual zombie evisceration. (We’re at the low ebb of a sea change at this 2000 date, as the torture pornography wave would soon render the ratings system completely meaningless.)
So Craven was asked to deliver the capping entry in a trilogy, with all hands tied, during a period where he was seriously considering abandoning horror movies altogether. How disillusioning. This leaves Scream 3 functionally unable to deliver terror. Owing to Kruger’s incompetence as a scribe, it also fails as a murder mystery. That leaves comedy the only viable form, and in desperation Scream 3 becomes the first Scream that can honestly be described as a comedy.
Without Williamson, Scream 3 is handicapped in the struggle to deliver the series’ trademark: post-modernist horror meta-commentary. Scream 2 demonstrated how commenting upon a sequel-qua-sequel is unproductive. More damningly, then, Scream 3’s focus is upon trilogies – and Kruger is so pop culture illiterate, the only trilogies he can think of are The Godfather and Star Wars (granted, this was right before a nouveau trilogy rush which brought us Lord of the Rings and The Matrix and Pirates of the Caribbean and whatever-the-heckamadoodle-hell-else). Honestly, for a series whose namedropping once reached the relative obscurity of I Spit on Your Grave, they can’t even muster the energy to cite The Evil Dead as a horror trilogy?! The utter valuelessness!
Thankfully, Scream 2 showed that going all ouroboros-like into one’s own existence was a superior substitute. It hypothesized the foundation of a fictional Stab film franchise, dedicated to misrepresenting the “real world” Scream events. This streamlines self-reference. Delving further into that particular rabbit’s hole, Scream 3 leaves the world of movie viewing completely, and enters the Stab set – as far as plot goes, today’s sees a new Ghostface killer stalking moviemakers.
(By the way, setting a slasher movie at the filming of a slasher movie isn’t a novel idea. It’s actually the least original of all Scream conceits. I’m struggling to recall any right now, because they’re usually DTV, but trust me these things exist. Often as Scream rip-offs.)
Under Williamson, this might’ve provided the opportunity to see how life and art influence each other in new ways, to see the Woodsboro/Windsor murders catch their own tail and pass metafictional event horizon. Under Kruger, it’s an excuse for lame Hollywood in-jokes, the sort we’ve seen made since at least 1950’s Sunset Blvd. A Scream as a lame, horror-tinged rip-off of The Player? Oh, sign me up! Yes, do!
Stupidly, the specific movie Scream 3 is concerned with is Stab 3: Return to Woodsboro (from now on, any movie lacking in an IMDb link is a fake movie – or something I already linked above). One infers Stab 2 parallels Scream 2. What is Stab 3 about, then, when there are no more real life murders to fictionalize? They don’t say, because that’s not really their concern (though it ought to be). Rather, Stab 3 is an excuse for two things: A) when characters say “Stab 3” and complain about its conditions, they really mean “Scream 3” (except when they don’t), and B) cheap soundstage versions of the houses from Scream 1 are more thematically resonant than the Scream 2 college stuff.
The opportunities for self-reference overwhelm. For the third time a Scream fails to match the promise of Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, and utilizes its own “movieness” for nothing other than one-off meta gags. Going the cloy and winking route, Scream 3 gives us Jenny McCarthy’s Sarah Darling saying “Stab 3? Jesus I gotta get a new agent.” Translation: Jenny McCarthy admits she’s wasting her own time (amazing the pinup girl from “Singled Out” could even do that!). And when Jenny’s Sarah’s character Candy has but two scenes, then death, it means the same thing for Sarah, but not Jenny. And that means nothing in the film’s larger context.
Every new cast member seems distinctly un-Screamish, perhaps owing to the patent falsity of Hollywood. Hence we get unrelatable characters with Stan Lee-style alliterative names like Jennifer Jolie, Steven Stone, Rita Reynolds, Martha Meeks, Parker Posey – no, wait, that last one is an actual actress, and a damn funny one it must be admitted. As a member of Christopher Guest’s troupe, she’s gotta be. And in a franchise which has already postulated names like Gale Weathers and Cotton Weary, it takes effort to be stupider.
Speaking of those former characters, they’re back. Cotton not for long, as Liev Schrieber’s star had risen enough for him to be promoted to “contractual opening dead celebrity.” It’s a depressingly straight downfall, where Ghostface simply phones Cotton up, threatens his showering girlfriend, then stabs both of them. Despite a car race across Hollywood, there is no meta trickiness to this opening.
As for Gale (Courtney Cox-Arquette, earning that hyphen at last), she and Dewey Riley (hyphen-supplier David Arquette) are kind of the only things keeping Scream 3 afloat, especially in the early sections while a disinterested Sidney Prescott is estranged from the narrative in the countryside and getting scare sequences (overtly supernatural, and thus totally out of place) simply for the hell of it. Over time, the franchise has truly become “The Gale and Dewey Show” (it also features a literal Gale show: “Total Entertainment,” because it’s somehow illegal to actually namedrop “Entertainment Tonight” and “Extra”). As the actual impact of Ghostface’s murders is nullified, the movie is instead a bumbling comic mystery, with a killer to unmask at the end. Things couldn’t seem more “Scooby Doo” if several of the series’ cast members went on to star in the live action Scooby Doo – and they did.
Parker Posey’s actress character Jennifer Jolie joins their investigation to – Okay, I gotta pause things here to address Kruger’s retarded naming system. “Jennifer Jolie” is easy enough to decode even without another character called Angelina – and that’s without Kruger then referencing Brad Pitt! Then there’s “Tom Prinze” – a combined Tom Cruise and Freddie Prinze, Jr. – and “Tyson Fox” – Tyson Beckford and Jamie Foxx. These are like the joke names a screenwriter might assign in the first draft, then later do a “find and replace” on, only Scream 3 never even had a first draft – and you can rest assured this is commented upon, because Stab 3 = Scream 3 = licking your own [CENSORED].
Now to pick apart Parker Posey…Her Jennifer Jolie plays Gale in Stab 3. Because Jennifer completely cannot separate reality from fantasy, she believes she’s Gale Weathers – even while wandering alongside Gale Weathers. In a different sort of movie, this conceit would be very amusing, and Posey performs admirably for that movie. She imbues her every movement with comic business of a most Looney Tunes sort – even turning in a hallway become funny. Total credit to Posey, who does what’s asked of her and then some. Clearly Scream 3 intends comedy. Otherwise, why cast Patrick “Puddy” “The Tick” “Kronk” “Brock Sampson” “Joe Swanson” Warburton as one of Ghostface’s more disposable victims? And why create a massive continuity problem with Kevin Smith’s View Askewniverse by giving Jay and Silent Bob a backlot cameo – even while their Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back imagines Scream as a fictional franchise?
Oh god, those cameos! Using Jay and Silent Bob is like placing an Airplane! gag in the middle of The Sorrow and the Pity. There are many others – and it’s the most reductive movie-about-movies joke. Roger Corman (ALL HAIL!) appears as a movie producer. (I unequivocally loves me some Roger Corman!) Carrie Fisher appears, not as Carrie Fisher, but a lookalike who didn’t f@&% George Lucas. Self-deprecation and all, but the celebrity paradox is dangerously toyed with when she nearly says Gale Weathers looks like Courtney Cox.
Which begs a point: If both exist (as does Jennifer Aniston, by Scream 2’s admission), why wasn’t the fictional Cox considered for Gale in the Stabs? Actually, in a universe where Return of the Jedi, Halloween and The Silence of the Lambs all exist (to cite three randomly citations), it’s hard to picture something as evidently cheapjack as the Stabs taking off as they did. And aren’t these movies libel?! How can they tell fictional stories of Sidney Prescott by name with total impunity? And she’s not even a celebrity! She’s a girl who’s survived multiple murder sprees (get ready to add one more to that tally). Movie rights can be signed away, sure, but the ongoing Scream predicament seems manufactured to allow the perfect meta conditions.
So the very nature of the Stab franchise becomes hard to take seriously – a gicockulous failing when your entire franchise is about how franchises actually function (and then we bloggers come along to discuss the franchise franchise’s franchiseness). Other little series problems creep up. For all the “anyone can die” talk Jamie Kennedy supplies (despite his character’s being killed off in 2, his VHS collection specifically anticipates Scream 3’s conditions), one thing is certain: Sidney, Gale and Dewey cannot die. (Indeed, Dewey’s been murdered twice already, only for preview audiences to continuously will him back to life.) They alone survive Scream 3 (along with a fourth character I shan’t even discuss – played by Patrick Dempsey), and everyone else is automatically marked for death, and hasn’t a chance. And we’re to that slasher stage where you simply stop fearing for the meats’ lives.
Contractual survival greatly diminishes whatever menace Ghostface conveys – and what menace is that anyway now that it’s the fifth guy donning the costume? Ghostface “himself” – would-be horror movie icon – is operating on a greatly reduced level. That’s even while he’s a telephone-based supervillain. For Ghostface is a klutz…this has been consistent throughout the series, and actually works to give his victims a fighting chance. But once we know Cotton Weary is destined to bite it, nothing he does to Ghostface matters. In lengthy, lengthy fight scenes, Ol’ Ghosty can be knocked unconscious, crushed with bookcases, thrown multiple stories, you name it, and still murder precisely when Kruger’s script pages demand it. And he’s not powered by the supernatural immortality of a Michael Myers; narrative necessity alone dictates Ghostface’s capabilities.
Sticking with that thread…Randy promises trilogies deliver certain goods mere Part Threes do not. To rephrase his maddeningly useless new Rule Trio (Randy seems under the fool misconception his movie ranting helps people, a fantasy he shares with Kruger, Craven, and most bloggers), here is how a trilogy must end: With retcons! The past must be altered, and the franchise’s foundational moment (the rape/murder of Sidney’s mother Maureen Prescott) is rephrased so that today’s villain is the mastermind. To explore the twist without revealing the killer (I haven’t even mentioned his character), we now have a “director” who’s somehow convinced four other serial killers, mostly from one small town, to wildly assassinate tertiary people, all in revenge for Sidney Prescott’s horrible sin of being daughter to a woman who once whored around Hollywood and…um…uh…
We’re getting out of hand here! Whenever a Scream tries to postulate anyone could be the killer, it suggests a universe where murder is the logical response to any personal setback. Wildly misdirected murder. What did most of those dead in Scream 3 do to deserve it? They got cast in a horror movie. Sometimes, they’re merely people near those cast in a horror movie. They have nothing to do with Sidney Prescott, not directly. (Yet somehow her dad escapes the trilogy unharmed…hmm, how’ll Scream 4 deal with this one?) And the specific reason for Ghostface No. 5? He was a motherless bastard child! Good thing most bastards don’t orchestrate several dozen murders over multiple years, or this world would be far more messed up.
(And in a series which has twice used the “two killers” twist, it is – SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER – quite a letdown when Scream 3 has but one. And the actor – TV guest star Scott Foley, most famous for getting divorced by Jennifer Garner in favor of Ben Affleck [if Scream 3 were made later, there’d be a character called “Ben Damon”] – this actor has no ability to monologue with conviction.)
If Scream was really planned as a franchise, to the degree Williamson suggests, surely its final twists wouldn’t jibe as poorly as they do. For all this goofy trilogy talk, instead the Screams boast the wear and tear of a normal franchise. Repetition destroys what was once effective, and the plot grows harder to accept with each passing entry. If we still must believe intent on Williamson’s part, then this all falls back to that troublesome irony. The first Scream gave itself the right to occasionally suck by admitting it sucked – not a good argument, but one of its likely stances. Likewise, are sequel problems acceptable when you’re trying to make bad sequels? No, not really. Even if this were the case, bad quasi-badness is surely out of the grasps of the genuinely bad Kruger. And that points to Scream 3’s ultimate flaw – abandoned by one creator and barely serviced by another, the artifice of its own importance crumbles.
RELATED POSTS
• No. 1 Scream (1996)
• No. 2 Scream 2 (1997)
• No. 4 Scream 4 (2011)
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