I sat through the first two Scream movies, didn’t really like 'em, but I am curious about what happens in the third. Not curious enough to sit through another round of young people being butchered, so I’m hoping some other doper saw this flick.
Who was the last murderer? Any great revelations or twists?
I know it’s been a while, but I hope somebody remembers.
There you go. That’s a very handy website for questions like that. 
Thanks! Were there any major differences between this movie and the first two or was it pretty much more of the same? For instance, was there any supernatural element? Was there a sense of finality about the movie or could there have been a Scream 4? Some of the hype for the film said that this one tied everything together and wrapped up the series, but I figured that was just hype.
Yes! A topic I’m an expert on!
Unboxed spoilers ahead!!!
Scream 3 was not written by Kevin Williamson, who wrote the first 2 films. Williamson is, in case you don’t know, the writer of Dawson’s Creek- he’s known for trademark self-aware teens, great dialogue, etc. He didn’t write this film I think b/c, as usually, the contract was only for a first and a moneymaker after that if it did well.
Eren Khruger (sp?) wrote this one, based on an outline for the third film written up by Williamson at the beginning of the franchise. He’s a competent horror writer- no, he didn’t play Freddy Kruger (that was Robert Englund), he wrote the script for The Ring, an incredibly well-directed horror film. Don’t give him too much credit, though, b/c if you watch Ringu (the Japenese film it’s based directly on), you’ll see it follows that film very, very closely.
Er, anyways- Khruger wrote this script, which is obvious b/c Williamson’s trademark dialogue is absent, though the film retains the elements that made the first so great. We all know that the second film did not match the first- it has great dialogue, again, and Williamson has his characters be self-aware about the sequels just as S1’s characters were about horror movies (they point out that they are churned out for money, and that few are as good as the original), but here’s what I see as having gone a little bit wrong (wrong term- it’s an okay film)-
-The script was put on the internet during production (even though they’d been really protective of it), so they had to change the ending- originally, it’s bloodier, gorier, more self-aware (the killers talk about sequels), and more surprising than the Mickey/Mrs. Loomis deal was.
-Williamson did all that he could- he’s writing a script for a sequel to Scream, and let’s face it, there ain’t much more ground to cover in S2. There’s only so much life you can inject into the tired slasher/victims deal. Williamson does his best- the opening scene is atmospheric, the body count is bigger and gorier, the dialogue is great, and he does what he does often in his films by putting in a literary allusion (w/ this film, the allusion is a scene from Cassandra, and it’s very well tied in w/ the plot of the film and also well-directed); he also puts in an unexpected musical sequence, and the tension over who’s a suspect is well done. But, well, there just wasn’t that much that could happen in S2- it’s all much ado about nothing. The death scenes are good, but the murder of Cici ain’t scary (and seeing Sarah Michelle Gellar getting killed by that dude? Buffy wouldn’t stand for that!), and the killer’s dialogue is, well, stupid and mostly absent. But good scenes are had w/ Randy’s death and such.
-The first film was not Shakespeare, but it was nestled so comfortably into a universe Kevin created- all the kids are self-aware about horror, and in this small town the movies come true- that it made the events magical (excuse my gushing). In S2, the film no longer exists in that universe, and…
-The ending can’t happen at such a good location as in S1. It lacks the atmosphere, the extended deaths and chasing, and energy of the first film’s. But the original script was better, as I said.
In the end, it was, as Leonard Maltin says, ‘as good a sequel as the filmmakers could have made…’, but in a perfect world, Kevin would have let his first film stand as a beloved achievement, the ressurrector of horror, and the revolutionary creation of a Hollywood that markets towards teenagers.
And some dipshit wouldn’t have put the superior ending on the internet :rolleyes:.
Whew!- sorry, I’ll start another post to answer your question.
UNBOXED SPOILERS AHEAD!!!
Scream 3 is better than S2 was. S3 is one of those third films in a trilogy that, coming after a good first and a mediocre second, chooses to forget part two and only link to part one. To explain what I mean, I’ll offer these examples:
Jurassic Park trilogy
Die Hard trilogy
The third film returns to a goodness lacking in the second, and in so doing it does not refer to part 2 at all, only part one. S3 is, like 1 and 2, directed by Wes Craven.
Scream 3 is great b/c it manages to make a tired story very exciting! At the beginning, Cotton Weary (the dude whom Sidney (Campbell) sent to jail for a year b/c he was framed for the murder of her mother) is murdered in Hollywood, where he now lives. The killer this time has a modified voice changer thingy, that allows him to pretend to be any of the film’s characters over the phone. This is used to great effect in certain parts.
Deputy Dewey and Gail Weathers are back (the cop and the bitchy reporter), and the chemistry between them happens again. This film (as I’m sure you read) follows the group of characters (Gail, Dewey, Sidney, and now a detective and the cast members of Stab 3, last in the trilogy based on Woodsburo and the college thing- the cast members are playing the characters (Gail, Dewey, Sidney) in Stab 3). The killer kills them based on the order they die in the script, but they don’t know which version he has. Sidney, Gail and Dewey see a tape filmed by Jamie Kennedy’s character Randy that he made before he died in S2. In it, he goes over the rules of part three of a trilogy- The killer will be superhuman, anyone including the main character can die, and something from the past is going to come back and bite you on the ass. This potential for anyone dying makes the film very exciting.
Also what makes the film exciting is the fact that the killer can seemingly be shot w/o dying!, making us think Randy was right. And the death/chase scenes- Cotton and his girlfriend are killed; an actress in S3 is killed in the studio; the actors and Dewey and Gail are in a house in Hollywood when the killer faxes them a page from the script, then cuts the power so they all run except the actor who goes in the kitchen to read the page by using his lighter- and the house explodes (gas leak)! Sidney joins them in Hollywood, and she visits the set of Stab 3 where she is chased around a duplicate version of her old house.
And the whole mystery of why the killer is leaving pics of her mother on his victims and saying ‘I killed her’ is very tense and exciting- in the end, after a film containing good self-aware dialogue, great death scenes and a great concept (the script killer), great chase scenes, great whodunnit tension- the film ends in the mansioned owned by the producer, where the actors and actresses of Stab 3 still alive are chased and killed, and Gail and Dewey taken hostage so Sidney has to come rescue them, and in the end the killer’s Roman Bridges (the director), who turns out to be Sid’s long-lost brother, who convinced the original killers in S1 to kill Sid’s mom, and has now done this b/c the producer made their mom a whore by making her sleep w/ him to get a part in some bad horror movies- and no, he’s not superhuman, he was wearing a bulletproof vest.
And there’s a great part where we think he’s killed Sid, and then it turns out she was wearing a vest too. And they kill Roman and Sid’s life is finally at peace.
And there damn sure better not be an S4.
thanks, Andrewt85! That’s just what I was looking for.
I would argue that Scream 2 and 3 are equal. Scream 2 despite the lackluster reveal has a lot more heart and seems to be taking place much more in the “real world”.
Scream 3 is in a purely fantasy world (Jay and Silent Bob make cameos!?!?).
Originally, from what I understand Sydney was supposed t obe the killer in S3.
Was anyone else betting the house on Dewey to be the killer in S3? I know I was, and also for him to be revealed as the ringleader of all the killings from S1, the puppetmaster pulling the strings, mua ha ha ha. I’ve been onto him since his bitch sister Rose McGowan bought it in S1. Ah well. On a completley seperate subject, anyone think that Rose McGowan looks a lot like Our Mrs. Reynolds?
But that, to me, makes it on par w/ S1- it takes place in the same surreal universe as the original, where film conventions come to life, and the characters follow ‘the rules,’ and the entire thing is obviously not reality. S2 had ‘rules,’ but not to the same effect as 1 and 3, and the events as you say were too real-to-life (sorta)- S3 returns to the spirit of characters in a little environment who have events happen to them based on the movies and who go along with it.
And as for cameos- Linda Blair appears in S1, and the head of police is played by the head of police from Nightmare on Elm Street, and there’s a part where we see the reflection of the killer lurking around the convenience store aisles! The first one was SURREAL dude, and so was 3. 2 was too real.
That was my first guess- b/c the series was kind of following a series of books called The Babysitter- in book one, the killer is the expected suspect, in book two the killer is a woman who’s killing for the revenge of the guy in Part one, and in book three there are other characters menaced by the killer and it ends up being the original girl victim (the Babysitter). That’s why I thought Sid was gonna be the killer in this one- but the moment the movie started and the killer is looking for Sid, and we see her being menaced by the killer, and chased by the killer, etc., there’s no way it could be her.
Actually, that’s not true- they could have pulled a mindf**k on us- the killer is out for Sid at the beginning, but that could be b/c the second killer is looking for her at first, and then when he gets to her house he realizes that she’s as sick as he is and she wants to kill too; we see Sid get called by the killer and menaced, but that could have just been her own thoughts menacing her (the voice is a delusion), just like she sees her mother in a delusional fantasy; she’s chased by the killer, but that could have been a delusion on par w/ Edward Norton beating himself up in the parking garage in Fight Club; and at the ending in which she is obviously not at the mansion where it goes down but is summoned there, the phone convo could be b/c the killer knows that Sid has relapses of her alternate personality (the innocent victim Sid) and he has to summon her to the house w/ the hostages, then snap her out of it by being like “Sid, wake up. You’re my partner. Enough with your multiple personality delusions,” and so she remembers and we’re shocked.
:rolleyes: 
I should write a fanfic of Scream 4.
In one version of the script that I read online, the ending happens like this: the characters end up back at Stew’s house from the ending of S1, and the killer ends up being Sid’s dad and the actress who plays Sid in the movie (the dad was traumatized by the events of S1 and 2).
Nice theory, but I can’t help but think it was influenced by Scary Movie, in which the Deputy Doofus character who’s based on Dewey ends up pulling a Keyser Soze (he seemed dumb, but he was the ringleader).
I forgot to mention that at the end, we see Roman’s character in an ice chest w/ a knife in his torso, dead, and Gail checks his pulse and determines he’s dead. It rocks! He’s ruled out completely, and then at the end he was just using makeup, and apparently Gail can’t check a pulse! Dumb b@@@@ :smack:.