Editorials
‘Scream 3’ Is A Great Trilogy Closer, You Guys Just Hate Fun
At a recent movie screening, I saw someone displaying unparalleled bravery in the audience. I saw someone willing to push back against a tide of indignity that has battered me for too long. I saw someone wearing a “Scream 3 Defender” shirt.
Yeah, I didn’t think they made those either, but here we are.
I mean, there are only like 8 of us out there, so you can’t blame me for being surprised. For the longest time, I’ve had to sit through people going on tirades about how terrible Scream 3 is. How it’s the worst of the franchise, how it ruined the formula, how it retroactively ruins the other films because of its plot twist. But Scream 3 is not a bad film. It’s not even a bad Scream movie. Because as Randy Meeks puts it in his posthumous survival rules tape for Sidney, Dewey, and Gale, Scream 3 is a rare closer to a horror trilogy…that just happened to keep going with films 4, 5, & 6. It was always intended to be the last Scream, and it does its job perfectly in that context.
Spoilers for Scream 3 and most of the other Scream films start here.
Going Beyond Woodsboro and Making It Count
The title might be a bit inflammatory, yes, but it is specifically worded to point out that Scream 3 is fun, not an expertly made film like the first.
I’m not here to argue over the things in the film that don’t make sense; I don’t think that the super high-tech voice changer isn’t dumb (it is), and I don’t think that the gas explosion kill makes any sense on a planning or physics level (it doesn’t). I am NOT here for Gale’s terrible bangs discourse. Scream 3 is far from perfect from a production standpoint, thanks to being subject to plenty of reshoots and 11th hour rewrites, and we can all acknowledge that. Hell, the film does plenty of that with its many in-jokes and references to its own continual script changes, in the light of leaks that were releasing both planted fake and actual material of Scream 3. The production was a hot mess, that in my eyes, pulled off the slightest of miracles with how well the film turned out.
But what I will argue is that as far as stories go, Scream 3 is the movie that gets best to the essence of the original, and it’s the second most fun in the franchise while doing it. It’s got plenty of messed up dark comedy, it’s got stellar performances, and it’s got the meta-horror commentary we love. It swings for the fences with its bolder ideas, like having a cast of actors portraying characters we’ve seen before as the new retinue of victims, including fan favorite Jennifer Jolie (played by Parker Posie), who accompanies Gale Weathers while trying to act like Gale Weathers. Rest in peace Jennifer, you were the best of us, you were the best of all the Scream side characters.
The cast-within-a-cast brilliance and the humor is a small byproduct of the film perfectly utilizing the Hollywood location; Craven’s directing makes for some joyride sequences. From set pieces like being stalked in a wardrobe room filled with Ghostface costumes, to being chased through a recreation of Sidney’s own house on a soundstage, going beyond Woodsboro really felt like it had more purpose than the environmental rehash that Windsor College ended up feeling like in 2.
Even the finale inside Milton’s old money mansion in the hills is the perfect level of camp while still feeling like uncharted territory. And while some deride it as closer to Scooby Doo than Scream, that’s…the whole point. The film is supposed to be a fun send-off for these characters, including stuff like getting trapped in hidden passageways and secret rooms.
And what really makes it the perfect endpoint for the trilogy is the send-off it gives Sidney.
But First, A Roman Bridger Recap
Scream 3 is a movie about a final girl’s last struggle and triumph, not only against individual violent, delusional men, but the culture that makes them. A struggle that has been going on since the first film, and 3 shows the most how Sidney has grown as a character.
She’s a women’s crisis counselor who works anonymously from an isolated home, with only Dewey aware of her location. She’s still reeling from the last film, having lost most of her friends along the way. But eventually, Ghostface rearing his ugly head forces her to confront her fraught relationship with her mother, and put her fears down one last time. Her arc culminates in one of the best final girl confrontations in all of horror history: Sidney Prescott vs Roman Bridger.
That second name caused a lot of groans and eye-rolls amongst fans reading this, I know, but hear me out. Because Roman Bridger is not just a personal favorite Ghostface of mine, he might just be the best Ghostface after Billy Loomis and Stu Macher for what he becomes a symbol of.
Played by the wonderfully talented Scott Foley, Roman is unduly hated for his miraculous and continuity-breaking kill streak (again, not here to talk editing). He is the only canonically solo slasher in the franchise pulling off some impossible feats, and his origins are even more controversial: Roman is the half-brother of Sidney by way of Maureen Prescott, with the other half of his parentage being one of the predatory Hollywood producers John Milton helped in assaulting Maureen.
Eventually finding his mother as an adult after being put up for adoption, Maureen refused to reconnect with Roman since he was too painful a memory of the worst time in her life. Enraged, he began stalking Maureen and filming the affairs she was having around town, eventually catching her with Hank Loomis. Showing Billy the footage as an act of vengeance and spurring him to frame Cotton Weary, the teenager’s plans to kill her were set into motion.
This would eventually lead to the creation of Ghostface, a moniker Roman would claim years later when he tried to lure out Sidney and end the Prescott bloodline for good. Roman is a nasty, entitled, chauvinistic piece of work who really takes the cake as far as Ghostface’s go, and his deluded efforts are rewarded with the beatdown of the century.
Scream 3’s Final Confrontation Is The Crescendo Sidney’s Story Was Building To
When they finally meet in the theatre room of Milton’s mansion at the film’s climax, Roman Bridger is revealed for what he really is: the perfect embodiment of the misogyny and sexual violence that has been following Sidney Prescott her entire life. While there is an intangible specter of Maureen Prescott haunting Sidney’s dreams in this film, the physical representation of that suffering ends up right in front of her. Standing across the room from her is the incarnation of all the misery, bullying, and judgment from Woodsboro and the world at large, placing blame and hatred on innocent women in the name of defending abusers.
From her classmates in the school bathrooms deriding her mother, to Nancy Loomis blaming Maureen for Billy’s actions, to Billy himself, Sidney gets to meet a neatly packaged representative for the culture of misogyny that made her flee into isolation in the first place. Roman Bridger becomes the human target for Sidney to unleash three films of pure rage on, and in their fight, it is cathartic glory. The dialogue they have before they get into it always makes me grin, because we get to watch Sidney finally chew him apart, and by extension demolish every other Ghostface’s terrible motivations.
It is by far the most brutal of the confrontations that we get until the Radio Silence films when they start throwing bricks and stabbing people 40 times a piece (not that I’m complaining, love me some bloody Radio Silence fare). It’s a pure knock-down, drag-out fight to the death that lets Sidney put her past behind her by physically beating the hell out of a human representation of evil. And it is downright fun.
When Sidney sinks that ice pick into Roman’s heart, it might not be what does him in finally (thanks for the headshot, Dewey), but it is what puts to rest the ghost of hatred that’s lingered all these years. She holds his hand as he dies, which can be read in a dozen different ways, but to me, it always felt straightforward: she had finally put that vigilance, that feeling of anxiety and shame and fear that sent her into hiding to rest, and was giving it a bloodstained send-off. A proverbial goodbye to Ghostface and his reign of terror, on behalf of the audience.
You know, at least until Scream 4 came along.
The Thematic Bow That Is The Roman Reveal
Now, many people hate that Scream 3 “retcons” Billy Loomis and Stu Macher’s motivations as being puppeteered by Roman. Except for a.) the fact that Roman literally states he never knew they were going to do the Ghostface killings, and b.) he makes their actions more realistic.
Roman spurring Billy to become a killer is in and of itself a pretty good commentary on how terrible men doing heinous things create more terrible men who do even worse. John Milton made Roman, even if we believe he never laid a finger on Maureen; he was an awful man who victim blamed and used his clout to avoid consequences. This made Roman, who eventually became a victim, blame his own mother in the same way his “father” did. Then that kid found Billy Loomis, and, you’re smart you can do the math on how that turned out.
The point is, that the cycle of misogyny and violence is propagated from father to son, from friend to friend, and the first three Scream movies were always a pretty prescient commentary on that idea that we now see as commonplace. Roman’s demise and Sydney’s victory is a neat bow that ties up the cycle of violence that followed Sidney and ends with her getting a well-deserved walk off into the sunset. And that walk is scored with triumphant music and bright, warm light that left Sidney at the peak of her victories.
Scream 3 undoubtedly deserves more credit. And do I really think everyone who dislikes it is simply anti-fun? Of course not, there are plenty of legitimate reasons you might find it hard to watch this film. But if it’s been a while since you’ve seen it, and you want to watch it as the end to Sidney’s story, it is more than worth a second chance. The next time you plan on skipping straight to 4 on a marathon watch through to see Emma Roberts dive bomb through a coffee table, think to yourself: do I want to skip the coolest fight Sidney Prescott’s ever been in and miss her one true happy ending?
The answer might just be no. Happy watching, horror fans!
As a horror fan, I tend to think about remakes a lot. Not why they are made, necessarily. That answer is pretty clear: money. But something closer to “if they have to be made, how can they be made well?” It’s rare to find a remake that is generally considered to be better than the original. However, there are plenty that have been deemed to be valuable in a different way. You can find these in basically all subgenres. Sci-fi, for instance (The Thing, The Blob). Zombies (Dawn of the Dead, Evil Dead). Even slashers (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, My Bloody Valentine). However, when it comes to haunted house remakes, only The Woman in Black truly stands out, and it is shockingly underrated. Even more intriguingly, it is demonstrably better than the original movie.
The Original Haunted House Movie Is Almost Always Better
Now please note, I’m specifically talking about movies with haunted houses, rather than ghost movies in general. We wouldn’t want to be bringing The Ring into this conversation. That’s not fair to anyone.
Plenty of haunted house movies are minted classics, and as such, the subgenre has gotten its fair share of remakes. These are, almost unilaterally, some of the most-panned movies in a format that attracts bad reviews like honey attracts flies.
You’ve got 2005’s The Amityville Horror (a CGI-heavy slog briefly buoyed by a shirtless, possessed Ryan Reynolds). That same year’s Dark Water (one of many inert remakes of Asian horror films to come from that era). 1999’s The House on Haunted Hill (a manic, incoherent effort that millennial nostalgia has perhaps been too kind to). That same year there was The Haunting (a manic, incoherent effort that didn’t even earn nostalgia in the first place). And 2015’s Poltergeist (Remember this movie? Don’t you wish you didn’t?). And while I could accept arguments about 2001’s THIR13EN Ghosts, it’s hard to compete with a William Castle classic.
The Problem with Haunted House Remakes
Generally, I think haunted house remakes fail so often because of remakes’ compulsive obsession with updating the material. They throw in state-of-the-art special effects, the hottest stars of the era, and big set piece action sequences. Like, did House on Haunted Hill need to open with that weird roller coaster scene? Of course it didn’t.
However, when it comes to haunted house movies, bigger does not always mean better. They tend to be at their best when they are about ordinary people experiencing heightened versions of normal domestic fears. Bumps in the night, unexplained shadows, and the like. Maybe even some glowing eyes or a floating child. That’s all fine and dandy. But once you have a giant stone lion decapitating Owen Wilson, things have perhaps gone a bit off the rails.
The One Big Exception is The Woman in Black
The one undeniable exception to the haunted house remake rule is 2012’s The Woman in Black. If we want to split hairs, it’s technically the second adaptation of the Susan Hill novel of the same name. But The Haunting was technically a Shirley Jackson re-adaptation, and that still counts as a remake, so this does too.
The novel follows a young solicitor being haunted when handling a client’s estate at the secluded Eel Marsh House. The property was first adapted into a 1989 TV movie starring Adrian Rawlings, and it was ripe for a remake. In spite of having at least one majorly eerie scene, the 1989 movie is in fact too simple and small-scale. It is too invested in the humdrum realities of country life to have much time to be scary. Plus, it boasts a small screen budget and a distinctly “British television” sense of production design. Eel Marsh basically looks like any old English house, with whitewashed walls and a bland exterior.
Therefore, the “bigger is better” mentality of horror remakes took The Woman in Black to the exact level it needed.
The Woman in Black 2012 Makes Some Great Choices
2012’s The Woman in Black deserves an enormous amount of credit for carrying the remake mantle superbly well. By following a more sedate original, it reaches the exact pitch it needs in order to craft a perfect haunted house story. Most appropriately, the design of Eel Marsh House and its environs are gloriously excessive. While they don’t stretch the bounds of reality into sheer impossibility, they completely turn the original movie on its head.
Eel Marsh is now, as it should be, a decaying, rambling pile where every corner might hide deadly secrets. It’d be scary even if there wasn’t a ghost inside it, if only because it might contain copious black mold. Then you add the marshy grounds choked in horror movie fog. And then there’s the winding, muddy road that gets lost in the tide and feels downright purgatorial. Finally, you have a proper damn setting for a haunted house movie that plumbs the wicked secrets of the wealthy.
Why The Woman in Black Remake Is an Underrated Horror Gem
While 2012’s The Woman in Black is certainly underrated as a remake, I think it is even more underrated as a haunted house movie. For one thing, it is one of the best examples of the pre-Conjuring jump-scare horror movie done right. And if you’ve read my work for any amount of time, you know how positively I feel about jump scares. The Woman in Black offers a delectable combo platter of shocks designed to keep you on your toes. For example, there are plenty of patient shots that wait for you to notice the creepy thing in the background. But there are also a number of short sharp shocks that remain tremendously effective.
That is not to say that the movie is perfect. They did slightly overstep with their “bigger is better” move to cast Daniel Radcliffe in the lead role. It was a big swing making his first post-Potter role that of a single father with a four-year-old kid. It’s a bit much to have asked 2012 audiences to swallow, though it reads slightly better so many years later.
However, despite its flaws, The Woman in Black remake is demonstrably better than the original. In nearly every conceivable way. It’s pure Hammer Films confection, as opposed to a television drama without an ounce of oomph.
There are only so many times I can get away with burying the lede with an editorial headline before someone throws a rock at me. It may or may not be justified when they do. This article is not an attempt at ragebaiting Scream fans, I promise. Neither was my Scream 3 article, which I’m still completely right about.
I do firmly believe that Scream 2 is, at the very least, the last Scream film I’d want to watch. But what was initially just me complaining about a film that I disregard as the weakest entry in its series has since developed into trying to address what it does right. You’ve heard of the expression “jack of all trades, master of none”, and to me Scream 2 really was the jack of all trades of the franchise for the longest time.
It technically has everything a Scream movie needs. Its opening is great, but it’s not the best of them by a long shot. Its killers are unexpected, but not particularly interesting, feeling flat and one-dimensional compared to the others. It has kills, but only a few of them are particularly shocking or well executed. It pokes fun at the genre but doesn’t say anything particularly bold in terms of commentary. Having everything a Scream movie needs is the bare minimum to me.
But the question is, what does Scream 2 do best exactly? Finding that answer involves highlighting what each of the other sequels are great at, and trying to pick out what Scream 2 has that the others don’t.
Scream 3 Is the Big Finale That Utilizes Its Setting Perfectly
Scream as a series handily dodges the trap most horror franchises fall into: rehashing and retreading the same territory over and over. That’s because every one of its films are in essence trying to do something a little different and a little bolder.
Scream 3 is especially bold because it was conceived, written, and executed as the final installment in the Scream series. And it does that incredibly well. Taking the action away from a locale similar to Woodsboro, Scream 3 tosses our characters into the frying pan of a Hollywood film production. Despite its notorious number of rewrites and script changes (one of which resulted in our first solo Ghostface), it still manages to be a perfect culmination of Sidney Prescott’s story.
I won’t repeat myself too much (go read my previous article on the subject), but 3 is often maligned for as good a film as it turned out to be. And for all of its clunkier reveals, and its ghost mom antics, it understands how to utilize its setting and send its characters off into the sunset right.
Scream 4’s Meta Commentary Wakes Scream from a Deep Sleep
As Wes Craven’s final film, Scream 4 has a very special place in the franchise. It was and still is largely adored for bringing back the franchise from a deep 11-year sleep. With one of the craziest openings in any horror film, let alone a Scream film, it sets the tone for a bombastic return and pays off in spades with the journey it takes us on.
Its primary Ghostface Jill Roberts is a fan favorite, and for some people, she is the best to ever wear the mask. Its script is the source of many memorable moments, not the least of which is Kirby’s iconic rapid-fire response to the horror remakes question. And most importantly, it makes a bold and surprisingly effective return for our main trio of Sidney, Dewey, and Gale, whose return didn’t feel trite or hammy when they ended up coming back to Woodsboro for more.
Craven’s work on 4 truly understands the power its predecessors had exerted on the horror genre, both irreverent in its metacommentary and celebratory of the Scream series as a whole. The film is less of a love letter to the genre and more of a kicking down of the door to remind people what Scream is about. 4’s story re-established that Scream isn’t going away, no matter how long it takes for another film, and no matter how many franchises try to take its place.
Scream 5 & 6 Is Radio Silence’s Brutal and Bloody Attitude Era
Put simply, Scream 5 and 6’s strong suit was not its characters. It was not its clever writing. The Radio Silence duology in the Scream series excelled in one thing: beating the hell out of its characters.
Wrestling fans (of which there is an unsurprising amount of crossover with horror fans) will know why I call it the Attitude Era. Just like WWE’s most infamous stretch of history, Radio Silence brought something especially aggressive to their entries. And it’s because these films were just brutal. Handing the reins to the series, Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillet gifted a special kineticism to the classic Scream chase sequences, insane finales, and especially its ruthless killers.
All five of the Ghostfaces present in 5 and 6 are the definition of nasty. They’re unrelenting, and in my humble opinion, the freakiest since the original duo of Stu Macher and Billy Loomis. Getting to hear all the air get sucked out of the room as Dewey is gutted like a fish in 5 was still an incredible moment to experience in theatres, and it’s something I don’t think would have happened if the films were any less mean and any less explosively violent.
So, What Does Scream 2 Do Best Exactly?
So now, after looking at all these entries and all of their greatest qualities, what does Scream 2 have that none of the others do? What must I concede to Scream 2?
Really great character development.
Film is a medium of spectacle most of the time, and this is reflected in how we critique and compliment them. It affects how we look back on them, sometimes treating them more harshly than they deserve because they don’t have that visual flash. But for every ounce of spectacle Scream 2 lacks, I have to admit, it does an incredible job of developing Sidney Prescott as a character.
On a rare rewatch, it’s clear Neve Campbell is carrying the entirety of Scream 2 on her back just because of how compelling she makes Sidney. Watching her slowly fight against a tide of paranoia, fear, and distrust of the people around her once more, watching her be plunged back into the nightmare, is undeniably effective.
It’s also where Dewey and Gale are really cemented as a couple, and where the seeds of them always returning to each other are planted. Going from a mutual simmering disrespect to an affectionate couple to inseparable but awkward and in love is just classic; two people who complete each other in how different they are, but are inevitably pulled back and forth by those differences, their bond is one of the major highlights throughout the series.
Maybe All the Scream Films Are Just Good?
These three characters are the heart of the series, long after they’ve been written out. I talk a big game about how Scream 3 is the perfect ending for the franchise, but I like to gloss over the fact that Scream 2 does a lot of the legwork when it comes to developing the characters of Dewey, Gale, and especially Sidney.
Without 2, 3 just isn’t that effective when it comes to giving Sidney her long deserved peace. Without 2, the way we see Sidney’s return in 4 & 5 doesn’t hit as hard. All of the Scream movies owe something to Scream 2 in the same way they owe something to the original Scream. I think I’ve come to a new point of view when it comes to the Scream franchise: maybe there is no bad entry. Maybe none of them have to be the worst. Each one interlinks with the others in their own unique way.
And even though I doubt I will ever really love Scream 2, it has an undeniable strength in its character writing that permeates throughout the whole franchise. And that at the very least keeps it from being the worst Scream film.
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