Common Sense Note
Parents should know that while there's less extreme bloodshed here than in the other Scream features, stabbings and throat-slittings are still abundant, matched with (sometimes exceeded by) the swearing. The movie industry is described as an environment where vapid starlets boost their careers by having sex with influential men. There are ghoulish and defamatory references to the imperiled heroine's late mother throughout, and toward the end the idea of parental rejection comes to the fore as a motive for mass-murder.
Families can talk about how fictitious violence portrayed in entertainment might incite real-life mayhem. They can also talk about whether screen bloodshed has a social effect.
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Charles Cassady, Jr.
When you've been SCREAMing over three movies, it's not surprising that the voice starts to get hoarse.
Unless further sequels appear, this wraps up the hit series of twisty, tongue-in-cheek, post-modern slasher films, starring Neve Campbell as a California girl who always seems to be ambushed and taunted by different dagger-waving maniacs wearing the same ghostly black costume and using trick phone voices. It's watchable and entertaining -- if you can take the blood, swearing and cynicism -- but shows signs of stretching these characters and gimmicks (a semi-sendup of slasher films while at the same time being one) a little too far.
The previous Scream 2 mentioned a hit horror film-within-the-film called "Stab," inspired by the killings in Scream. That detail dominates SCREAM 3, centered around the studio making "Stab 3," third of what -- in the film, anyway -- are the true-crime perils of Sidney Prescott (Campbell), who by now has suffered so many attacks from masked marauders that she lives in behind security locks and alarm systems, and works anonymously at home on a violence-counseling hotline.
Suddenly, knife murders by a new killer wearing the familiar robe strike Los Angeles, causing police to shut down the "Stab 3" set. Sidney, meanwhile, is tormented by dreams about her mother (whose offscreen rape-murder years before set in motion all the SCREAM atrocities in the first place). She emerges from hiding to try and help hunt the latest slasher who's obsessed with her.
There aren't many remnants of the original SCREAM cast left to be suspeects anymore, so the soundstage environment provides a new batch, callow actors portraying Sidney and her friends for "Stab 3." They include an ingenue (Emily Mortimer) getting her big break playing Sidney, an abrasive starlet (Parker Posey) in the Courteney Cox role as the TV-tabloid reporter Gale Weathers, and so on. Pretty much without exception they're vapid, self-centered creatures whose attitudes toward status and sleeping their way to the top allow director Wes Craven to get in some knife jabs at the movie industry and its values. Among the inside jokes: A cameo by legendary exploitation mogul Roger Corman, and Carrie Fisher portraying a bitter, retired Carrie-Fisher-lookalike actress, complaining she didn't get the role of Princess Leia in STAR WARS because she didn't go to bed with George Lucas.
Moments like those distract from the mystery element of SCREAM 3 itself, which is perhaps a good thing. The whodunit this time needs a lot of talking (between knife attacks and some pretty far-fetched death traps) to retro-fit the latest villain into murder conspiracies that happened two scripts ago, making its narrative the weakest of the set. Yet, give the filmmakers some credit that it's not necessary to have seen the first two SCREAMS to enjoy this one on a simple level of action and Tinseltown self-parody.
Late in the movie, though, as the slayer's identity and motivation is revealed, the thrill-ride takes on a disturbing dimension with ideas of parental neglect and dysfunctional relationships (and, yes, movies) that give birth to monsters. This falls in line with a lot of Craven's work, chillers like A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, SHOCKER and THE HILLS HAVE EYES, where young people often discover horrible things that can be traced right back to mom and/or dad. There's also a suggestion at the end that the SCREAM storyline represents a maturation arc for Sidney, who learns to get over her fears about the past and embrace the present.
Then again, what girl wouldn't have issues if five separate people, including intimate associates, had planned to butcher her? That and the continual winking it's-only-a-movie inside jokes hold SCREAM 3 back from being as thoughtful as it aspires to be, even with the discussion-worthy aspects.
Rate It!
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Sexual ContentCharacters talk frequently about sex, almost always in the context of using it to get ahead in show business. Heroine Sidney's own late mother is described repeatedly as this sort of specimen. A movie executive's bedroom has one-way mirrors, presumably for kinky voyeurism. |
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ViolenceVicious stabbings, close-range shootings, and hand-to-hand punching and strangling. |
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LanguageProfanity here is more graphic than the gore. |
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Social BehaviorNo one behaves very admirably. |
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CommercialismReferences to other movies. |
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