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SCREAM 3
Wes Craven, screenwriter Ehren Kruger and the gang from Woodsboro are back for another round of slasher madness in Scream 3,a fresh variation of tongue in cheek gore that captures the spirit of the first film better than the second and puts the characters we really care about center stage.
The film opens with the murder of Cotton Weary (Liev Schreiber) who was considering a cameo appearance in the third STAB film where the killer again rears his ugly head once again in an attempt to get to our heroine Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), who finally has to face the truth about her mother.
Craven and Kruger got the franchise back on track here with a return to the subtle humor that lets the audience in on the joke, primarily through the meeting of the real Woodsboro characters and the actors playing them in STAB who take their roles very seriously until they realize that these roles might be a possible death warrant.
The film reunites Dewey (David Arquette) and Gail (Courtney Cox Arquette with a bad haircut) in Hollywood where Dewey is a technical consultant on STAB 3 and Gail is the host of her own entertainment magazine show. The "will they or won't they" between these two characters still has mileage and Craven and Williamson are fully aware of that. The attraction between the two is always an undercurrent here though both find themselves very serious about getting to the bottom of what's going on. I love watching these two but I'm kind of over Sidney...I don't know if it's the actress or the character or the fact that Craven hasn't properly explained what he's trying to do here, but Sidney just seems like she accidentally wandered off the set of a more serious slasher movie, though Campbell does manage a semblance of chemistry with Patrick Dempsey, the detective who gets involved in the goings-on with Cotton's murder.
The Arquettes had proven chemistry and when given chance to carry the story, they really delivered...there's also solid support from Lance Henriksen, Scott Foley, Josh Pais, and especially Parker Posey, who steals every scene she's in as STAB Gail Weathers. The second film was a little too serious in tone for what I was introduced to in the first film, but this film is more in spirit of the first and was a lot of fun.
Wes Craven, screenwriter Ehren Kruger and the gang from Woodsboro are back for another round of slasher madness in Scream 3,a fresh variation of tongue in cheek gore that captures the spirit of the first film better than the second and puts the characters we really care about center stage.
The film opens with the murder of Cotton Weary (Liev Schreiber) who was considering a cameo appearance in the third STAB film where the killer again rears his ugly head once again in an attempt to get to our heroine Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), who finally has to face the truth about her mother.
Craven and Kruger got the franchise back on track here with a return to the subtle humor that lets the audience in on the joke, primarily through the meeting of the real Woodsboro characters and the actors playing them in STAB who take their roles very seriously until they realize that these roles might be a possible death warrant.
The film reunites Dewey (David Arquette) and Gail (Courtney Cox Arquette with a bad haircut) in Hollywood where Dewey is a technical consultant on STAB 3 and Gail is the host of her own entertainment magazine show. The "will they or won't they" between these two characters still has mileage and Craven and Williamson are fully aware of that. The attraction between the two is always an undercurrent here though both find themselves very serious about getting to the bottom of what's going on. I love watching these two but I'm kind of over Sidney...I don't know if it's the actress or the character or the fact that Craven hasn't properly explained what he's trying to do here, but Sidney just seems like she accidentally wandered off the set of a more serious slasher movie, though Campbell does manage a semblance of chemistry with Patrick Dempsey, the detective who gets involved in the goings-on with Cotton's murder.
The Arquettes had proven chemistry and when given chance to carry the story, they really delivered...there's also solid support from Lance Henriksen, Scott Foley, Josh Pais, and especially Parker Posey, who steals every scene she's in as STAB Gail Weathers. The second film was a little too serious in tone for what I was introduced to in the first film, but this film is more in spirit of the first and was a lot of fun.