Scream 3

Scream 3 is the only film in this series that I don’t actually like. Don’t get me wrong, taken on it’s own it’s not bad. However, compared to the previous films, it’s lazy. It’s particularly annoying that the movie taunts us with the suggestion that one of the main characters will die, and all three of our leads are still alive when the credits roll. Furthermore, we’re told this in a posthumous videotape recorded by Randy (Jamie Kennedy), the main character who was killed off in the previous film.

That’s the problem with this movie: It’s supposed to be the concluding chapter. It’s the end of a trilogy, a finale, the close of the story. However, Scream 2 actually felt much braver in it’s decision to kill off Randy. This movie, however, doesn’t have any moments that are particularly shocking or surprising.

One point that is borrowed from the second movie: building the reveal around a brief line of dialogue from a previous film. That way, the movies feel connected, without getting too bogged down in continuity. For 2 it was the comment about Billy’s mother leaving town, setting up her reappearance. In this film it was the suggestion that Maureen Prescott had slept with a large number of men, setting up both her sexual abuse during her time in Hollywood, and the possibility that Sidney (Never Campbell) had an unknown sibling.

However, the movie chooses to expand and throw in new characters, when it should be slicing everything down to the basics, and building a film on established characters from the previous movies. All the elements for a good finale are here, but they’re assembled in the wrong way.

The set-up of the film makes sense: Sidney has gone into hiding, working on a womens’ crisis hotline. In order to get her attention, the killer begins a rampage on the set of the newest Stab movie, where Dewey (David Arquette) is working as a consultant. Gale (Courtney Cox) is contacted by the police and comes to the set after the first murder of the now-famous talk show host Cotton Weary (Liev Schreiber). The killer begins targeting the actors in the order of their deaths in the film (Cotton had foolishly agreed to appear as himself in a cameo in which he would be killed off).

Eventually, Sidney is lured into the case. As she, Gale, and Dewey hunt for clues, it eventually comes to light that the killer’s motives relate to Sidney’s mother Maureen, who had spent some time in Hollywood under the name Rina Reynolds. It becomes clear that she’d been sexually abused by multiple men at the home of Producer John Milton (Lance Henricksen), who profited from her death by making the Stab films. Henricksen gives us a decent Wes Craven impersonation, although I kind of wish Craven had taken the plunge and played the role himself.

When the killer captures Gale and Dewey, Sidney is lured to his home, and finds out that her mother had a child who grew to be Stab 3 director Roman Bridger (Scott Foley). Roman had sought Maureen out before the events of the first film, and had the door slammed in his face. So, he groomed both Billy and Mrs. Loomis as killers in an effort to get revenge. From that revelation the film plays out as expected: Roman has a plan to frame Sidney as the killer, there’s a confrontation, and he’s killed. The only major deviation from the previous film is the lack of a secondary killer, and that only because a rewrite eliminated the idea of Sidney’s in-universe actress Angelina (Emily Mortimer) being his accomplice.

I don’t wish to give the impression that Foley does a bad job. Indeed, better established, I think Roman could have been an excellent villain. But, this wasn’t the time for new elements to take center stage. The movie also suffers from having Gale’s actress, Jennifer (Parker Posey), suddenly become a main character investigating the crime. While the idea of Gale competing with a fictionalized version of herself to be the best Gale Weathers is moderately amusing, it further distracts. This movie complicates what should be simplicity and humanity.

I spent a lot of time debating how I could criticize this movie without a better solution myself. And then it came to me: the perfect ending to this trilogy would be for Sidney’s brother to be a character known and beloved throughout the series. Ironically, Scary Movie got it right: the revelation of Dewey as the mastermind would have been both logical (why did the killers never finish him off in the previous movies?), and heartbreaking. While you could argue that Dewey would have little trouble finding Sidney, bringing her into an environment in which she was vulnerable would be far more difficult.

So, is this a bad film? Once again, no. However, if you’re going through the Scream movies and skip from 2 to 4, you won’t feel like you missed that much.

100 Scariest Movie Moments: #64 Near Dark

Yet another movie with a relatively simple plot, in which I’m forced to just ask the question “did I find this film scary?” And, once again, the answer is “Hell yes!”

When I say that it's "simple, I don't mean that the same way I do for many other films, however  The plot doesn't merely provide a reason for the people to be present before a string of horrible things that happen to them. In this film, things are complicated slightly by B-plots, such as a love story and by the story of a family searching for its lost son. However, these aren’t really the major focuses of the film.

A young man named Caleb (Adrian Pasdar) tries to pick up a drifter named Mae (Jenny Wright), not knowing that she’s a vampire. It’s unclear if the writers intended Caleb to be a “nice guy” or a creeper, but he certainly does come on quite aggressively. Eventually though, Mae bites him and he’s forced to join her vampire family while his own family searches for him.

The movie is unusual in that it doesn’t treat the mere state of being immortal or undead as horrific in and of itsellf. Nor does it attempt to overtly demonize the vampires. They’re bad because they live by killing people. But the vampires as individuals can be quite affable, and Caleb doesn’t necessarily dislike them. However, they have a rule that all members of their clan have to be willing to kill, and the logic behind this is actually sound. The alternative to killing is to have another vampire kill for you to provide blood. Obviously, this seems like a coward’s way out to both the characters and the viewers.

The movie is scary because the characters’ motivations make sense. They’re basically a group of drunken rednecks riding from one massacre to another, having fun along the way. They actually seem like the kind of people you might realistically meet at an out-of-the-way bar, and I could imagine enjoying a game of poker with them. However, they’re loyal to themselves and to their own; a perfectly sympathetic motivation, but one that leads them to do terrible things.

They kill people without hesitation, and even with enjoyment. Towards the end of the film, a child vampire, Homer (Joshua John Miller), even wants to turn Caleb’s young sister (Marcie Leads) so that he’ll have a companion trapped with the same eternal youth as him. Once again, this is a sympathetic motivation, and it also ties together the story of Caleb’s family searching for him with the main plotline.

While I don’t deny that this is a bloody movie, to me, the horror comes from how humanized the villains are. There’s one fundamental truth here; the fact that we all believe we have a right to live. When it’s us or someone else, we always choose us. Therefore, when dealing with others, we can do the math. “One vampire that lives to 300 will slaughter X number of innocent people, so by ending one life, we save many more.” However, that whole equation changes the instant we’re the vampire in question.

I feel a little as though I’m missing the point of this movie. Like I should be talking about Bill Paxton slaughtering the inhabitants of a bar, or making reference to how awesome Lance Henrickson is in literally every role he’s ever played, including this one. But that’s not what I personally came away with from this film. I came away having experienced a story about life and morality which, by the way, also happened to have awesome performances and a lot of blood.

I recommend this movie. *Insert pun about it having bite.*